Philosophy of Individuals Action within Society

[Mike Fleming]

This comes from another thread but was not related to the thread topic so I'm moving it here.

 

Original conversation here

 

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38889-anyone-thankful-for-fdr-for-helping-them-discover-the-zeitgeist-movement/

 

 

 

  

you say: "There is only individuals acting." it appears you are only taking into account people. this is wrong. "structure" invariably includes the ecosystem, or "nature", as well, because our actions are entirely influenced by the environment. so when i say "structure" i am also including the "conditions" of our world, i.e. levels of food, amount of land, current state of knowledge, etc.this is why, to my understanding, "structural violence" does not particuarly care for the specific government official enforcing taxes, because that action is merely taking place, in effect, within the "structure" of our environment; the "structure" of our reality (scarce resources for one) produces effects such as taxation (redistrubition of resources to attempt to keep societal balance). the purpose of recognising these "structures/conditions" of our world will allow us to come to more accurate solutions.this is why i take your "there are only people acting" statement to be so innaccurate -- and dangerous, really, in the long run -- because it ignores that peoples actions are invariably influenced by the nature around them. this is what i meant earlier when i said: "if you have a problem and don't take everything which is causing in that problem into account, how do you ever expect to fully solve that problem?". the way you worded your response makes it seem like your solution to stop taxation is to only focus on the people enforcing it; and that logic completely ignores why these people are taxing others to begin with, because that then inevitably leads to taking the state of nature into account.

 

 

First of all I want to address your claims about taxation being required for redistribution of resources within society.  Decades ago, there was nowhere near the level of taxation we have today, either in percentage or overall terms.  As resources have become abundant and society overall has become wealthier, taxation has increased proportionately.  Yet people everywhere, even the poor, are better off than ever.  Not only that, but if you look at how taxation is used you can see it is incredibly inefficient at best and completely destructive at worst (wars).  The free market has been shown to be far more efficient at allocating scarce resources and achieves much more of a wealth effect throughout society.  Are you a statist?  Are you in favour of taxation?

 

Now as to the more complex issue.  Humans are autonomous agents within the system.  We are not cogs in a machine, we are not physically connected to each other.

 

I mentioned this before, but there are limitations on the amount of information that we can gather.  Therefore, there are practical limitations on what can be determined.  Knowing this we have to, in my opinion, take the only way out and say that each human being has a certain degree of responsibility for their actions.  Now we, as human beings, don't currently have access to all the information we need to.  People who have been abused and had their brain chemistry altered as a result are not consciously aware of this, unless they are informed.  They will quite often feel confused and sometimes wonder why they behave in certain ways.  It was certainly true for me to a certain extent.  So we need to make people aware of the information, and then, then they become fully responsible for their actions, as a deterministic machine, from that point forward.  Because they now have the required information that they need to make changes.  

 

You will never have enough information to be able to perfectly predict people's behaviour.  It just isn't possible.  So you can say we need to take into account influences on people, and I certainly agree, and I think this is a big part of Stef's show.  But you'll never have perfect information, or even close to perfect information.  

 

And so this is why I don't look at the structure as a whole.  I think we need to focus, much like Stef's show does, on individuals and this will then become society as a whole.  A bottom-up approach.  And this is why I don't think much of "structural violence".

 

Can I ask, are you a determinist?  And if so, what is your view on it regarding responsibility for ones actions?

 

[june]

First of all I want to address your claims about taxation being required for redistribution of resources within society.

 

that's not what i said at all. all i was saying is that a structure will produce certain effects -- that's it; a planet having scarce resources coupled with billions of organisms which need a lot of resources will inevitably produce certain effects, such as attempted management of those resources (which may include taxation, as just one example)

 

 

I mentioned this before, but there are limitations on the amount of information that we can gather.  Therefore, there are practical limitations on what can be determined.  Knowing this we have to, in my opinion, take the only way out and say that each human being has a certain degree of responsibility for their actions. 

this is entirely beside the argument of the discussion. it's irrelevant whether or not we can account for every variable ever, the question is that should we account for other variables at all, or should we only account for the person literally performing the act. stefan says that only the person performing the act can take responsibility because it was their free choice to do so, so stefan can not take into account other variables of the act (such as abusive parents).we have already both shown ourselves to agree on this matter. 

And so this is why I don't look at the structure as a whole.  I think we need to focus, much like Stef's show does, on individuals and this will then become society as a whole.  A bottom-up approach.  And this is why I don't think much of "structural violence".

 

when you say, "...I don't look at the structure as a whole....we need to focus...on individuals" it seems like you're gravely missing the point, because the term "structure" in this context is centered on the individuals, it's just a fact of reality that to change the individual you also need to account for the "structure" around them. essentially you are agreeing but are arguing about matters of degree, ie. you don't want to focus on broad scale influences (societal law, for example) and would rather focus on "individual" influences (presumably this boils down to direct education).