In my college classes, I keep getting asked what past societies thought or what current societies think. I don't see how I could answer those questions without making hasty generalization.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I don't see what the issue is. Society.. is an entity living its own life, independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals, acting on its own behalf and aiming at its own ends which are different from the ends sought by the individuals.
Edit: You could just whip out this little gem to the class: Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks.
Le Master: I don't see what the issue is. Society.. is an entity living its own life, independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals, acting on its own behalf and aiming at its own ends which are different from the ends sought by the individuals. Edit: You could just whip out this little gem to the class: Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks.
I'll have a go at this!
The mind is an attribute of an individual there is no such thing as a collective brain. Events that transpires as a result of society (people engaging in voluntary interaction with one another, driven by self-interest) are merely the aggregate of individual thoughts and actions... Whether significance plays a role I'll let you decide; I'm out to lunch.
There is a quite simple way to find out about the mecanisms and ways groups are thinking. Just have for example a look on the stock market. The shareholders are some sort of society - and this society is extremly interested in finding out about what or how they do think as a group.
There is a mixture of feelings (sentiment); by experience (for example the idea behind chart-technique) and basic information and know how.
That there acutally is some sort of "collective brain" es quite easy to be prooved:
That societies are able to think quite different on the same issue is interesting, too. For example take a view on Germans and Austrians tiniking about the stability of currencies in comparism with French or Americans.
Germans and Austrians had as peoples the experience of hyper-inflation in a context with a total breakdown of their societies after WWI (The end of Monarchy - in the case of Austria this even ment that the country declined from the 2nd biggest State on the european continent (behind Russia) to one of the less important countries.)
Even thogh France did not reach hyperinflation - there was inflation after WWI - but the problem did arise in combination with the Victory over Germany and the Status as a strengthend colonial power in northern africa. So the French did not feel inflation as a mayor problem.
And Americans did not have Hyperinflation since the civil war. A time much to long ago for a people to remember every-day-problems of this time. Most Americans still do live in the believe that One Dollar is just One Dollar and simply the best money in the World.
So we do have three societies thinking totally different about the same thing - throgh a combination of different experience and forgotten experiences.
And infact we can find this heritage even in the Austrian School of Economics. Mises was born in some sort of outback of the Austrian Empire. Some sort of melting pot where german, jewish, polnish and several smaller people did live together. Not to forget that also Carl Menger was from the same region in Galizia. I think they did learn a lot by thiniking about economics just because there have been many jewish people just in that region. So even this is to be regardet as some aspect of "thinking of societies".
Just have a look on the United States. The time of the biggest progress of the US was the time of mass-immigration from all over europe. The Americans were (after the romans) actually the first country to combine the knowledges of many peoples "door by door". In Europe we are even today still far from a state where we can learn about the different ways of thinking of peoples "door by door". We still have to travel and teach us languages - and than we still have just a better immagination about maybe 3 peoples.
Peter Wild:That there acutally is some sort of "collective brain" es quite easy to be prooved:
You've proved nothing. You gave a list of what individuals exercising power did. This has nothing to do with a collective brain.
Criminals, there ought to be a law.
Criminals there ought to be a whole lot more. Bon Scott.
Ok - I got your point. Yes - indeed you are right. But If you would combine my thoughts with yours - the consequence would be that there does not exist even much individual brain.
Just have a look on those many efforts within history to "turn around peoples way of thinking". We can see those efforts of course in the soviet hemisphere - but we can see it also within the programs to make Nazis normal people in Germany - especially by the US-Governement.
If this would just be a question of giving some facts and pictures - it would be quite simple. But this would mean that People would tend to ust believe everything. But that is the point: People do actually resist to belive things that do differ with theier former way of thinking. Not taliking about personal experiences.
The only way to get over such problems is the mutual sharing of backgrounds. Maybe because the sharing of backgrounds is just the "tool" we need to realice what or who made us think/belive the way we just do or did. And this is the point why George Orwell in 1984 makes the governement say "Ignorance is strength". Just becaus becaus well informed citizens are a risk to every governement.
I think they are just talking about majority opinion, i.e., what do the majority of people in that society think.
Why anarchy fails
This is akin to asking if neurons think. They do, in a sense, but they have no means to understand these thoughts.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
AJ: I think they are just talking about majority opinion, i.e., what do the majority of people in that society think.
This.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Sure. They are smarter than anyone of us.
Peter Wild: There is a quite simple way to find out about the mecanisms and ways groups are thinking. Just have for example a look on the stock market. The shareholders are some sort of society - and this society is extremly interested in finding out about what or how they do think as a group.
Well, they use the data to extrapolate what the people in stock market think. However, you are somewhat making my case; we have the data as to what stock market "thinks." But what 300+ million Americans think about some issue.
There is no such thing as "society". Society is just a concept, that encompass individuals as a collective group. The concept that society is somehow more wise and all knowing than YOU.
/woooosshh!
Society decides what is best for you, and for me! What they think is on a far more grand scale of altruism than some lone, idealistic individual! Woooe!
I wonder what society is?
Is society a person? You walk down the street and you see some dude. Maybe he's walking a dog. Is that society?
What about all those buildings. All those skyscrapers, houses, churches. Is that society?
Hey! There are two people trading over there! That guy's buying onions from that onion vendor! Is that society?
Hmm....
I dunno guys, I'm having a hard time finding this thing called society...
So.. if society exists, what is it? And how does it know more than I do, gosh darnnit?
You observe, but you do not see.
Daniel: AJ: I think they are just talking about majority opinion, i.e., what do the majority of people in that society think. Yes, but how could anyone know the majority opinion of 300+ million Americans? Or of Europeans in the 19th century? Did they ask every single person? Now, I understand that there are polls and surveys, but they assume what rest of the population thinks based on their small sample.
That's the point I would raise as well. I'm sure what they want you to do is look to laws, polls, votes, common customs, "popular" movements and "popular" writers in that society to glean what the majority supposedly thought. But of course laws are decided by the State, polls are often faulty, votes are silly for many reasons, and who or what was really "popular" (as in liked by the majority of the whole populace in a given area) is not easy to determine. Common customs are perhaps one thing that - if recorded accurately in history - might be a useful indicator, but on the other side of the coin we know that common customs are influenced by political forces as well.
Regarding the present day, opinion polls covering even relatively small samples can be statistically accurate for large populations if the poll is conducted well (which may be a rare occurrence). If anyone's interested in why the statistical side of polling works in theory, read a bit about confidence intervals.
The word 'society' ought not properly be used as a noun or adjective. 'Society' is a verb.
eg. Quaker society is NOT respectively an adjective and a noun, rather a noun and a verb, "Society" IS action, not the subject of action.
Therefore one cannot ask WHAT past societies thought because 'societies' is not a subject. It is an action which includes thought. (...and run, and fly, and barter, and exchange, etc...)
The 'societies' of man are mens' actions, not the men themselves.
"Oh, I wish I could pray the way this dog looks at the meat" - Martin Luther
Le Master:Society does not think any more than it eats or drinks.
Oh that is gold!
On a very rigorous level, society cannot think because it does not possess a brain.
Though the concept of thought is very much analogous to much of the phenomena that comes out of society.