Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:45:19 -0700 for <socgrad@UCSD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 10:45:02 -0600 (MDT)
From: rebel palm aitchison <rpalm@unm.edu>
Subject: Re: "individuals"
To: LEE MARTIN <S-LMARTIN@bss1.umd.edu>
Then I guess we're all nothing more than Borg.  Hugh's to you, Lee!

On Fri, 14 Oct 1994, LEE MARTIN wrote:

> I agree with Laura Miller.  It can be argued that the very word 
> "individual" is a misnomer since, in fact, the self is essentially 
> social in nature.  As Mead and symbolic interactionists who followed 
> him have pointed out, not only is there no pre-social self---we are 
> not born with a self---but the self is created, maintained, and 
> changed in a social, interpersonal location.  There is no core self.  
> Sociologists who unreflectively use the word "individual" without 
> appreciating this may perpetuate the sacred cult of the individual 
> (if I may bring Durkheim into this).  There are political, material, 
> and self-concept ramifications of believing in a core self that 
> facilitate the continuation of forms of domination, self-delusion, 
> and obsfucation of the structure and effects of social stratification 
> and systematic social control mechanisms that operate in our society.
> 
> Selves are social.  "Individuals" are social.  What implications for 
> social change might this draw were Americans to wholeheartedly 
> abandon their ideology of individualism?
> 
> Lee Martin
> U. of Maryland
>