Is society making people more androgynous?: Philosophy Forums

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Is society making people more androgynous?

jsawvel
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Posted 09/06/09 - 07:50 PM:	#11
Also, people did not evolve in "society" as we know it. They evolved in small groups. The phenomenon of groups of millions upon millions has only been the case for the last 10,000 years or so.

jsawvel
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Posted 09/06/09 - 07:52 PM:	#12
And, probably technology has played a major role in giving the idea of "society." If we were not able to communicate with the rest of the world/country etc, then we would have the idea that our groups were smaller.

loveofsophia
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Posted 09/06/09 - 10:56 PM:	#13
I am going to go off in left field, cause all that needs to be said already has. This conversation makes me think about how we are all products of our culture and upbringing, our past and individualized experiences. It is odd to know this; odd to know it and still be unable to just slip off into some unfixed and completely malleable mode of existing. We are more within a range of potential change that varies dependent upon the age we are, most likely, and probably genetic inheritance, and the cultural/social/educational/learned tools available to us for any self-directed change.
It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

Phillip Nero
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Posted 09/07/09 - 11:24 AM:	#14
Kwalish Kid wrote: Genes have expressions only through their interaction with an environment. Humans evolved within social structures and hence our genes find their expression, naturally, within an environment that includes a social structure. And indeed it is, for any human male or female. That doesn't make individual perspective invalid, but it does put it in its place. Certainly- a biological interaction within and between environments. I concur with this; my point was not to sever the relation between genes and the fact that we (like higher primates) are social by nature, but rather point our that humans are not the exclusive function of interdependent relations within a group. Rousseau wrote a good lot on this, and he would take issue with the claim 'Humans evolved within social structures.' The last is not accurate, and his Second Discourse proved its inadequacy. I also agree that it does not make individual perspective invalid.

Phillip Nero
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Posted 09/07/09 - 11:30 AM:	#15
mutemaler wrote: It simply means that we could not be this all of what you call our heart, mind, and will without the culture, without the society. If you mean that the claim 'Without society or culture, we wouldn't be human.' expresses the idea that we would not be "all" of what we are without society, I confess that I do not see it. The former makes it a necessary condition, whereas the latter brings sufficiency in the picture. What do you think of this?

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 09/07/09 - 01:10 PM:	#16
Phillip Nero wrote: . Rousseau wrote a good lot on this, and he would take issue with the claim 'Humans evolved within social structures.' The last is not accurate, and his Second Discourse proved its inadequacy. Well, too bad that the facts speak against Rousseau.
"Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P Can you pass Religion 101?

Phillip Nero
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Posted 09/07/09 - 03:19 PM:	#17
Kwalish Kid wrote: Well, too bad that the facts speak against Rousseau. Actually it was the other way around, and both of Rousseau's essays were widely read and much of them was accepted, even by the worst of them- David Hume. Of course, his emotive attachment to passion as "the" reason to live did not sit well with the empiricists, but they too realized philosophy moves in a spiral- not a circle (see Frank Ramsey). His descriptive work in the Second Discourse delineated the facts very well, even though you make the claim that they speak against him. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Marx would disagree that "the facts speak against him." His notion of freedom is another story.

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