[ox-en] Communities and society (was: Re: SpamAssassin and OHA)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:06:59 +0100
Hi Casimir and all!
Last month (43 days ago) Casimir Purzelbaum wrote:
ok. The way I see it is: society is split into groups and
individuals. It is *split*, not merely structured or the like.
By stressing that it is split what do you mean? The unreconcilability
of these groups and individuals? If so where is the problem with this?
And this is why it is not a community.
I very much agree that there is a fundamental difference between a
collection of groups / communities and the society as a whole.
However, I think this is because these are fundamentally different
concepts.
If you try to combine all individuals / communities / groups in one
entity you end up in a state.
That individuals are
being part of several groups does not remedy this split, on the
contrary, it leads to the formal internalisation of conflicts
What's wrong with this?
and
to the concepts of "deconstruction", doubting that there was such
a thing as the individual in the first place: they analyze the
individual down to it's different roles along the lines of its
relationships to different groups of society. Those roles are as
contradicting each other as the interests of the groups are. If
there was no community, but only groups, then there was no
"individual as such" at all. What we see as an individual would
merely be the incarnation of (more or less) contradicting roles.
I cannot say that this view was wrong. It might even be
increasingly true ;-( But I do think that it is very limited.
The formal internalisation of conflicts is just the first step.
(It is comparable with the formal subsumption of labour by
capital.) But it already indicates that human society does
develop towards being *a* community rather than representing the
mostly unrelated "co"-existence of communities. Hence, formal
internalisation is a prerequisite for "real internalisation" of
conflicts, which does not split, but structure.
Hmm... It seems to me that you want this global community. Am I right?
I think I'm as sceptical as Graham is.
Why not thinking of the GPL society as a loose network of groups which
are or are not related to each other? Can you give a reason why this
won't work? Or why it can't be good in terms of emancipation?
I'd agree that in such a concept there are conflicts which can't be
really internalized because people are not part of this
super-community. So what?
it is a negation
of society if there is a possibility (!) of the individual man
pleasing to do something harmful to society / to other groups /
individuals/roles. In other words, if there are incentives for
that, or conditions that produce *purely particular* interests,
which, in turn, result in the infinity of particular conflicts as
observed today.
And you would like to see this eradicated? Am I right when I feel a
deep desire for harmony here? I'm sceptical this will be possible of
even desirable.
This is not true for what I (ostentatively ;-) call "community".
-- Because there is groups and individuals and roles with
conflicting interests regarding the airport, there is no such
thing as a "community" between the people that are related to the
airport in one way or other.
Yes. And this is particularly the point. In modern societies people
otherwise not related in any way are subject to such conditions. I
think it adds nothing to emancipation if you want to build communities
in your sense in every such occasion - not talking of a
super-community / state.
It looks to me that a pre-modern concept is the foundation of what you
think. When the big majority of the people lived in relatively small
communities and the outside world played only a small role then I can
imagine there is some holistic community.
However, with the advent of modern societies by the pure mass of
people you are confronted with in every day situations this is not
possible any more.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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