[MD] Julian Baggini: This is what the clash of civilisations is really about

[david]

John said:

There is a logic to the fact that the only way to intellectually resist social pressure is individually.


Arlo replied:

...Your conflation of intellectual and individual does not recognize that 'individuals' and 'collectives' exist on all of the MOQ's levels. It's simply a matter of the focus of your lens. Also, keep in mind that 'activity' is through a collectively mediated symbolic structure that ONLY emerges through this social level of value. ...And, rather than 'thinking for yourself' I'd say 'participating in intellectual discourses'. Intellectuality, and sociality are active processes that occur within an 'individual/collective' milieu. Intellectuality, specifically, as Bakhtin argued, is a 'ventriologuated' activity; done though the appropriation of the voices of others, projecting towards an anticipated audience of future voices, and delivered within a culturally-salient semiotic-social media.   As Siouxsie Sioux sang, "even when we're on our own, we are never all alone, when we're singing."


dmb says:

Well said, Arlo. 

The individual who stands alone in defiance of "society" is a cool American myth. We see it in Western movies, Ayn Rand "novels" and Pirsig's Phaedrus taps into it too. But it's a very bad way to read the distinction between the social and intellectual levels of morality and I think that very few philosophers would take it seriously as a description of intellectual activity. Like Pirsig says, an alternative way to describe an insane person is a person with their own culture, a culture of one. Like morality and language, it's only ever needed and only makes sense when there is more than one person.