Bizarre in what way? It was mostly a response to @albill 's frequent remarks along the lines of “But Group X forbids it!”
Again, this is positing the influence as being unilateral. As if I exist separately, that groups affect me, but I do not affect them. It might be convenient as a thought-exercise to have me alone living in a vacuum subject to others, but this denies the reality of people’s abilities to associate and organize. Your model of me as an atomized individual actually depends upon me not being able to socialize with other individuals, and this seems unrealistic.
Only if I am reactionary. And assuming that how long I live has any specific significance, which is a big leap. And again, you are making social life out to be somehow essentially asymmetrical. This whole view is predicated upon saying that social structures I am involved in creating must be less real than those of others, just because. This also seems to assume that the health or effectiveness of a society must essentially be measured in influence, despite the fact that monoculture is demonstrably maladaptive. For those who measure “power” in terms of minimizing their options, maybe its for them. But lock-in doesn’t seem very robust when compared with diversity.
It depends entirely how one defines “social activity”, does it not? If a society is participatory, it arguably doesn’t need its norms enforced, since they are negotiated directly. Otherwise, there is the classic model of deciding that some people must be more special than others - but I think that there is a very real probability that this amounts to wishful thinking.
Sure, there are people doing something together, with some sort of values and goals. But feeling compelled to kill others over them can be inferred as something of a failure, that they are not secure in their values as Catholics. If their values and goals truly were universal, they would not need to exert any force. It can be called “social” after a fashion, but some might say that it is only nominally social. In the same way that not all structures can be said to be equally structural. There is an element of subjectivity here, that measurement of structural fitness depends upon one’s goals. The matter of preserving one’s own life is also relevant here - if a given society requires you to live without agency, then what purpose does your continued existence serve? Other than to strengthen your adversaries? So what does one actually risk by trying something else?
Sure, it’s real. Some might also say that it is rather trite, and not difficult to improve upon.
It’s really reactionary. As I often explain, I am more interested in pro-active approaches than reacting to the most primitive barbaric scenarios people can think of. I am going to eventually die anyway, so it doesn’t make so much difference. The real failure, I think, would be wasting the time when I am alive by using it foolishly.
Just as you and I seem to not agree as to what may constitute “social”, I think we will need to let “radical” go, as well. I don’t find anything radical about reducing social activity to some instinctive essentialism. It’s sounds crudely functional, in a way, but presents no cogent argument against people optimising their own lives or social interactions as needed. Also, again, I think that too many assumptions about life and social reality which I refute were implicit in your exposition of my position on the subject, so it seems clear to me that you don’t quite understand where I am coming from here, but that’s fine, perhaps it is a work in progress.
So? I am less concerned about the inter-personal and social difficulties of people optimising each others reason, than I am about people making far too many baseless assumptions.
