[MD] Keep on Truckin'

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Mark]
It depends on how one sees freedom.  Let me ask you this:  Do we live in a
world of bondage that we are trying to instill freedom, or do we live in a
world of freedom in which we succumb to bondage?  Your essay below suggest the
former, whereas, the latter seems much more reasonable.

[Arlo]
My words suggest nothing about "freedom" or "bondage", as this sets up an false
dichotomy. My words point out that human agency is as bound to structure as
structure is a product of human agency.

"Bondage" is mistaking the structure for being solely constraining. "Freedom"
is mistaking that our range of agency is independent of structure.

[Mark]
We spend (at least) 14 years or so being indoctrinated into the bondage of
words and the social level. 

[Arlo]
We assimilate a cultural milieu, and this provides us with a far richer field
of agency than a feral human devoid of "words and the social level".

[Mark]
The structures do not enable or constrain anything.  They can be dismissed with
the blink of an eye. 

[Arlo]
If you think you can dismiss the network of roads "with the blink of an eye"
and not have your agency in movement reduced, think again. 

[Mark]
The road is not an agency with any power, simply a road that we build.

[Arlo]
I did not say the road had agency. I said the road is a structure, created by
human agency, that both constrains and enables greater human agency.

[Mark]
If we allow that which we build to dominate us, then freedom is lost.  This is
most true of any government.

[Arlo]
We are freer with government than we would be in a state of anarchy. Or rather,
or range of potential is greater in a governed society than living in one
without such structure.

[Mark]
I do not see the structure and agency as co-evolving.  I see them as two
counter currents who's friction brings about our reality.

[Arlo]
And that is your problem, in a nutshell.

I don't have time to do it justice, but take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"Structuration".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuration