[MD] Patterns

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ron]
I think what Arlo was getting at was that society is a collection of 
individuals.

[Arlo]
I want to be clear here, Ron, and this is not what I was getting at. 
The "individual" and "society" are mutually dialectic. The mind, the 
"self" is a social phenomenon. It derives from the confluence of 
unique, proprietary experience and the assimilation of a collective 
consciousness. It does NOT originate out of "nature" or "the world of 
objects", only to then form societies.

[Ron]
Individuals who speak the same language share similar ideas follow 
similar rules each individual having the power to influence the way 
the other individuals think and act.

[Arlo]
Individuals do not share similar ideas, we ARE these shared ideas 
along with our unique experiences. It is confluence of these two 
things that create the "self". Our voices are the appropriated 
dialogue of our culture resonating with the unique experiences 
derived from our biological separateness. This is where the concepts 
of "agency" and "structure" break away from their traditional use, 
and become mutually enabling. "Agency" does not fight against 
structure, agency derives from structure. But at the same time, 
structure derives from acts of agency.

The other thing to remember is that it is not individual v. 
individual in coercing "free agents" to act or think a certain way. 
When Pirsig says "our intellectual description of nature is always 
culturally derived", he is pointing out that seeing and not-seeing, 
or how sand is sorted, the entire way we order our thoughts is 
derived from the language habits and customs of the culture. "We are 
suspended in language", as Pirsig quoted Bohr.

And this is not a bad thing! Language does not blind us, it enables 
us to see. What we have to remember is that this sight, however, is 
not "objective", but structured.