Individual or Society?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Hi! I’m new but having read many threads feel like I know many of you! :laughing:

What I want to ask comes within the sphere of political philosophy but I hope will challenge your beliefs.

When it comes to politics, I think broadly the first question you should ask someone is… what is the priority Individual or Society? From that one question, one can glean a picture of that person’s view.

The libertarian may come up with one argument, the socialist with another. But ultimately I think it is this dichotomy which differentiates us.

What is more important? Individual freedom? Social justice?

I have read an earlier thread so I want to clarify what I understand socialsim to be…it isnt the simplistic concept of everyone making the same amount of money but for me, it is about everyone having an equal opportunity to succeed, so equal access to a good education, good healthcare etc and a minimum standard of living. This is perfectly compatible with a meritocracy. But obviously would involve a significant redistribution of wealth.

I will admit Nozick makes me ill…but he would argue the opposite.

I am interested to hear what people think…what is more important, the individual or society?

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I am a Reaganesque conservative/libertarian. I own a firearm, but can’t see where this is a constitutional right. I am pro-choice, but disagree with Roe v. Wade. I’m all for gay marriage, but against the state regulating marriage at all. I’m all for capitalism, but can’t even envision an instance of capitalism without some redistribution of wealth. I think america needs government healthcare, but think that most healthcare is a scam, and that the government will only make things worse in that regard. I do not believe that all men are created equal, because that implies a creator, and I can’t make sense of what “equal” might mean.

So how do I asnwer you? The individual.

I’m sure that all makes perfect sense.

f

3

In politics there is no such thing as an individual or, at least, there’s no such thing as an action that only affects an individual and therefore all action is social, political. As such any discussion of ‘the individual’ is irrelevant.

After there, it is only possible to put into language what is already held constant, suspended between people. One cannot describe exactly how this particular cup of coffee tastes…

4

That is technically correct.

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Hey SIATD! Thanks for your post and I think I understand what you are saying.

However I am not sure if it is relevant to my primary assertion which is fundamentally that people build their political views on the basis of

1)The role of government is to protect the rights of the individual
2)The role of government is to create social justice and a fair society.

I accept this is simplistic but personally from experience I think this is fundamentally true.

Whilst there maybe no such thing as a discrete individual within politics this doesnt mean one cannot base policy as a politician on the basis of protecting the freedom of the ‘individual’. If you see what I mean?

I know people who fall into both camps and hold their beliefs passionately so I’d just be interested to know which side of the fence people fall into and why?

6

What lucid posts. Make me feel like I have something to say…

I used to be less mature. It’s an ageing process and so has a direction.

In my immaturity, I believed that my government should aim to protect everybody in my country. I felt we were all chipping in so all deserved to get something back. I understood the sum was greater than its parts.
(2+2=5)

I became an anarchist. And then spent some time working for social services before moving on again

I think what we’re looking for is an arena in which governmental policies place the two questionably prioritised roles into conflict.

Something like ID Cards.
Individuals will believe they’ve a right to personal privacy.
A certain percentage of the populace will believe that those who are good citizens will have nothing to hide.
Therefore the public has a consensus towards greater public good.
If this comes against the rights of the individual. The individual may suffer.
But then it’s getting a bit crowded around here, don’t you think.

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Isn’t social justice ultimately the decision of a collective of individuals? Or, more specifically, isn’t social justice a tool by which society–which is composed of individuals–maintains its structure, integrity, and definition?

Gravity, the ground, and a full glass of milk created some shards of glass and a pool of milk. I believe “equal” can only refer to value or worth in terms of morality/legality in the context of the constitution.

Irrelevant? Society is an interaction of individuals; how does their interaction nullify their importance?

I don’t understand how your immature conclusion works. If you accept the assertion that the whole is greater than the parts, why would you believe that society shouldn’t exist? Isn’t society the whole to its parts, individuals?

8

Alun,

Here’s a suggestion for you: rather than blunder onto an otherwise lucid and interesting thread and repeating the same assertion (‘society is made up of individuals’) ad nauseum you could try actually presenting an argument.

My point was that politics is always already transubjective because it relies on interaction. Expressed as a matter of ethics this is ‘without conflict there would be no need for politics’, expressed as a matter of discourse it is ‘for the discourse to be possible we need to be other than individuals’.

‘Society’ is a word that bears a certain set of relations to other words. This is the word’s ‘meaning’. Implied by this certain set of relations are a series of prescriptive/performative ‘ethics’ that govern how a word is used. Likewise ‘individual’. This is only possible if we are capable of at least trying to imagine what it’s like for people other than ourselves and communicating this to a greater or lesser extent, i.e. it is only possible if we aren’t individuals. Society isn’t composed of individuals, it is composed of habitual relations between people that are never inherently separate.

This is a political argument derived from Wittgenstein’s ‘Private language’ argument and other bits and pieces. If all you do now is reassert your false claim that society is made up of individuals then this is the end of our exchange.

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Hmmm. Forgot about this thread. I do agree that the view that saitd espouses is technically correct, as I said. Like much of what Wittgenstein says, that little that makes sense at all, I find the formulation trivial, however. In fact, I find the distinction drawn by the initial question of the thread trivial.

Saitd is correct when he says that it is the interactions of individuals, and not the individuals themselves, that is the operant value in any discussion of society. But that is like saying that mathematics is not about numbers, but about their relations. True enough.

What matters is what you do with this information. Myself, I always see society as the wallpaper of my life. But it can be argued that the egoist cannot rightly speak of society at all. There is a real debate, though, I think, not so easily dismissed as saitd would have us think, if I read him right. But in the end, either we are talking about these relations or we are not. It’s what we say about them that counts.

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In a sense, nothing in language (or politics) is singular (individual). In another sense, everything in language is singular. Derrida’s formulation, not mine. He was talking about language (in the general sense of anything that signifies) but one may as well extend it to politics since that’s what I’ve done with Wittgenstein. I’ve never got beyond this apparent contradiction, it remains something of a mystery. So to clarify: I’m not dismissing what you believe I’m dismissing, though my last post did imply that.

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Well, saitd, Derrida is another master of the obvious. I am trying ever so hard to read Of Grammatology. Tough sledding.

And it’s merely these two senses, as you say. The two starting points will always come together by the end. There is Kant and Hegel, and there is Nietzsche and Sartre. Society is made up of individuals, who are in some sense just that - individuals. But even Zarathustra came down from the mountain, realising that his beacon was useless if no one saw it.

What’s more important, the play of the individual footballer, or teamwork? Why do we need to answer this question? Take your best man out and see how you do. Then your second best man. Repeat, until all you have left is the coach’s effeminate son and the owner’s nephew. What have you got?

The two elements in question here define each other - not quite what you said, but maybe what you meant. This is not as troubling to me as to some. Don’t really know why. I just don’t see a contradiction, but a compound definition. There are a lot of those. I know you know what I mean (even if you don’t agree in this case), because you have inveighed against the inappropriate pairing of opposites. It’s the same “problem”.

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I think individual freedom is more important. Individuals should be free to pursue their happiness with as little interference as possible. A caveat would be individuals have the right to pursue happiness so long as long it does not interfere with rights of others.

Only the individual knows what makes him happy. If all individuals took responsibility for their own happiness we would not have to worry about making other people happy.

Plus it is much simpler to think in terms of what’s best for one as an individual than what is best for society. Different things make different people happy. One could ask himself two simple questions:
What shall I do so that I may be happy?
Will it interefere with the rights of others?

That being said I would think that most would see the accumulation of wealth as their pursuit of happiness. Therefore I believe a government’s primary function is to safeguard against stealing from others. It should protect those who are fair in business and punish those who would commit theft or fraud.

The idea of a “redistribution of wealth” seems like stealing to me so I am very much against it.

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HB. Most publicly-built highways are examples of redistribution of wealth. Should all roads be toll roads?

Be warned - I’ve got plenty more where that came from.

14

Well, I’m probably about to anally rape a dead horse, from the sound of things, but here goes.

Being something of an Objectivist/Capitalist, I think there’s definate reasoning for the seperation of individual and society in government. However, when one takes the central route, that of common sense judgement, one finds that each issue has a different principle that is followed.

For example, lets use judicial examples (after all, the only true claim to fame that any government really has is the strength by which it protects its populace, and the range of freedom it grants):

A person is brought before the court for savagely murdering thousands.

He’s sentanced to death.

Now, although he commited a horrible crime, this is an example of the choice of society over individual: On the individual level, you’re cutting his life short, thus stopping his needs, his chances at growth. Go macroscopic, and you see that, the lives of the many are indeed made better by this condemnation and destruction.

There are, however, cases in which this is not the case. The next, example will demonstrate:

A man is caught murdering a group of thieves who’ve entered his house.

He’s found not guilty on terms of self defense.

What this one comes down to is simple: Although the man has violated a primary rule of most governmental systems, he did so in the defense of what is rightfully his, by the course of his own conquest. More people are harmed by the murders he’s committed than those benifiting directly from them, but still its allowed—because the others transgressed underlying principles of the society.

With these examples in mind, doesn’t it seem a bit abstract or irrelevant to debate which holds more importance? Other issues can always be substituted, ones not involving transgressions against governmental mandates, and found to be likewise jaded. The government’s stance of importance, therefor, should be one of “Which side will recieve the least harm, should the decision be made in favor of the other?”, or, in the examples of judicial measures: “Which side’s trangressions make them less important as a citizen or organization, and are their actions in the given case just by our standards?”

I dunno. I figured I’d end this with a good one line summary, but I’m firing blanks…so, in the approximated words of Hemmingway:

“Its a story about a man, and a fish. Go away”

15

I admit to being an idealist and thinking in general terms. If all roads were toll roads this would probably cause major inconveniences yet possibly the roads would be built faster and less expensive than a government funded project. Also only those who actually use the roads would be paying for it.

I believe in paying taxes. That, I agree, is redistribution of wealth. Where the original post stated ‘a significant redistribution of wealth’ I took to mean some sort of asset seizure where the proceeds of which are used to provide for and pay for education and healthcare for all citizens basically free of charge to the individual.

The government of America fits closely enough to my ideal government for my satisfaction. In reality there will always be waste, corruption, and fraud. It’s a hallmark of humanity. I feel reasonably protected by our laws concerning personal property and I believe I have the freedom to pursue my happiness in a country that I think offers great opportunity for its citizens. Of course, I’m a simple man. Just posting on this board makes me happy.

16

HB - you anticipate some of what I might have said. Education, through grade twelve, is, in america, government-funded. The means of this funding differs by state, but does constitute a significant redistribution of wealth, and does much of the funding for state colleges and universities (particularly community colleges). But all intstitutes of higher learning are subsidised by public money, if only through tax policy. But most often in many more ways, including a variety of public tuition assistance, research grants - which can be very large, indeed - government contracts and more. Some important schools would not even exist without the GI Bill, after WWII. American institutes of higher learning have been the beneficiaries of a longlasting and very significant transfer of wealth.

All taxation can be considered asset seizure.

But these schools have paid big dividends against this investment. Why would publicly-funded health care automatically be different?

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They both have equal importance. One does not out weigh the other.
Lets take a simplified look.
In a social structure You have producers that are also consumers. They produce a specific item or service that they inturn trade their surplus of for things or services that soemone else produces. the more people that gather in a location the more production and consuming happens. One can actually start giving some of their production over to purchasing luxeries. Which creates more production. Now all these folks living in one area have a need to control this structure. So a need for rules develop.
With out individuals there is no society, yet, with out Society there will be individuals, that can only struggle for survival and never or rarely achieve a comfort level that allows luxury. One is just as important as the other.

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Kris, I think you are correct, here. It’s not a matter of importance, but merely of focus. Good philosophers should be able to shift focus according to the purpose at hand, as you have so deftly done here.

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SAID writes:

This assumes first that we are individuals and secondly that people are the same in their individuality. I don’t believe either to be the case. What is described above is only possible if we are individuals. Large societies have unconsciously suppressed individuality for its purposes to such a degree that we really have lost touch with what it means to be an individual other then through cultural standards. It has become so PC to insist that all people are the same that individuality has a negative collective connotation as well.

It is precisely through individuality that society has the possibility of reaching its potential and function as a vehicle for the cooperative establishment of man’s individuality or the goal of his existence. But since individuality has become some sort of social construct of rebellion and the like, we’ve lost track of our "humanity,"our “individuality.” Definitions of "individuality become the property of “experts” trained by the collective virtually assuring the quick descent of any true budding individuality around it into oblivion Since the word has become meaningless as a a whole, its connection to society has become the same and society is then content to become the glorified collective; the golden idol that has come to replace essential Man in his individuality, meaning, and purpose. Without being individuals or respecting individuality, how can one person truly respect another’s individuality? I believe it is only then, from the point of view of individuality, that we can begin to grasp what society is capable of. But it seems that there are so few individuals in the real sense of the word, and the "Great Beast"strives so powerfully against their influence, that progress in common sense is difficult if not impossible.

20

Individual/individuality is such and interesting word infact it apears to be several words compacted together.
In
divide
dual/duality

Wow! Is it dividing the duality of each person that is in us or what? Kind of has several explanations that I can see, what about you guys? How many ways can this word be broken down? What are the meanings of each word in individual/individuality?

Society/ Not so interesting, it is one word, one meaning, at the most, two.

hmm. Its a thinker I think.