############################Thanks to everyone for all the interesting comments and additional posts following from the Personalism piece by Brooks. I agree with Joe, Dave, that your Huff Post article was excellent. And I very much like the visual shared by Ken. I am also reminded of the talk given by Steve Keffer on how hunter gatherers navigated the self-other dynamics by fostering autonomy and communion in balance, while suppressing competitive dominance.
From my vantage point, the key is to create social systems that nourish relational value. This is the black line on the Influence Matrix. It refers to the experience of being known and valued by important others. How can we cultivate relational value at the level of individuals in relation to small groups in relation to nations and globally?
Along those lines, here is a recent large scale survey on loneliness that found “most adults are lonely,” suggesting we are not doing a great job currently.
One other point I would like to make here is that I think it is very important to be careful when thinking about the individualistic VERSUS communal dynamic, and that has to do with a levels of analysis argument. From a Periodic Table of Behavior view point, the human individual and human group (especially large scale group, like society) is a different level of analysis. The difference is stark if you think about it academically. The language game that I use to describe human individual level behaviors as a human psychologist is very different than what Joe uses as a sociologist. My point here is that I often see some of the confusion between individualist versus communal tensions as arising because they actually operate at different levels of analysis.
Finally, I would like to echo Nancy’s point that “elites” do often frame knowledge in too certain of terms and that, coupled with the massive fragmentation of knowledge has contributed to the diminished value placed on expert knowledge.
G
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:TOK-SOCIETY-L-SIGNOFF-
[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A= 1
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1