Is social independence equal to social progress?
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 9:49 pm
I have been pondering for some time about the zeitgeist of this hypermodern society (note: things might differ from your own countries) and the emergence, or should I say prevailing, of new forms of social life that continue to show new faces, but with at least one very interesting feature to it: while the importance of each individual to any other individual has seemingly decreased overall, with the substitutionableness of individuals and the pluralization of choices (I dunno but this might be much more prevalent in massively inhabited places in the world) the importance of each individual as for their humanity however has increased, with the emergence of strong international, national, regional and local institutions that provides help and services for their citizens and other people alike, combating suffering and raising ableness and individual empowerment.
In a way we live in an age of the individual, but this same individualization has created a counter-ego-centric sphere where the ego through the cultivation of emotional exposure has included in itself people who seemingly have no direct materialistic dependency relationship to the emotionally exposed individual, in so forming emotional ties between "symbols of humanity", that is, symbols that refer to a sense of humanity, humanness, to other people and their being in the world, and those other individuals themselves. Symbols of humanity can be emotional ties to groups of other people, sympathy with people suffering any specific form of pain (hunger, censorship, autocracy), or even hatred of things you have never seen or been near. These things are not new, what's new is the extent to which these things are decided upon by the individuals themselves and are not indoctrinated by some authority, like church, state, parents, or school-teachers. Individuals embracing the vastness of other individuals into their psychosocial life and even their economic sphere of life (international charity, financial aid, tax-money or aid foundations or corporations taking on projects and the likes abroad).
From this I want to question a possible tendency for social independence, the lightening of the relations we have (from heavy and socially immobile ones) and the expansion of options and opportunities in relations, to also lead to a form of social progress. I have some biased belief in this tendency, which I've been working on for some while to sort out, but here I want to put forward the question if whether or not it is simply not also a condition underlying social progress, to uproot our relations and exploit our social resources from more diverse and abundant sources and from more diverse and abundant forms, to acquire a psychosocial and emotional security for the individual. As a counter-argument there seems also to be a lot of messy transitions, how far these extend and whether they are not just unhealthy anomalies remains a question I cannot answer, but anti-social behaviour in the form of trivialization of other people seems a particular problem that plagues bad school environments and but also extends into grown up life for some people with the willingness to not care about other people but treat them as unimportant in an equation, as trivial, and their emotional and psychological life as uninteresting. Much could be said that things weren't better before, but this form of behaviour remains a constant threat under a society that doesn't bind people in sufficiently strong bonds (bonds strong enough to be exploited for repression of disrespect for instance), and while I suspect it is strongly, at least in my society, on a reverse course to diminish and slowly vane, it remains a strong hindrance to progress, and in the most extreme cases perverts progress, like else harmless technology perverted into destructive weapons.
Another counter-argument to social independence leading to social progress is that the more lightweight relations become the less meaningful they become. Well my argument back towards this is that meaningfulness is not necessarily a positive trait, and if ones relations aren't meaningful to one then that's a fact and not a loss. Given true abundance and access of options and choice, the ways in which you will make meaning out of forming and maintaining relations will depend upon the state of your needs (the needs of the other individual should be part of your own needs if you have developed a sense of other people's state of needs, and so doesn't stand to contradiction).
As the lightening of relations develops further, one will also see that people are able to exploit (read: use with care) each other much more deeply and be willing to invest more in other people because the fear of loosing will be less. In other words, the more ensured our psychosocial and emotional and even economic life is from dangerous turns, the more we will invest in developing those psychosocial and emotional aspects of life so as to attain maximum benefit per unit of danger we allow ourselves. Naïvety flourishes in safe societies, and it reaps a nourishing fruit, to be metaphorical.
Any objections, comments, disagreements?
In a way we live in an age of the individual, but this same individualization has created a counter-ego-centric sphere where the ego through the cultivation of emotional exposure has included in itself people who seemingly have no direct materialistic dependency relationship to the emotionally exposed individual, in so forming emotional ties between "symbols of humanity", that is, symbols that refer to a sense of humanity, humanness, to other people and their being in the world, and those other individuals themselves. Symbols of humanity can be emotional ties to groups of other people, sympathy with people suffering any specific form of pain (hunger, censorship, autocracy), or even hatred of things you have never seen or been near. These things are not new, what's new is the extent to which these things are decided upon by the individuals themselves and are not indoctrinated by some authority, like church, state, parents, or school-teachers. Individuals embracing the vastness of other individuals into their psychosocial life and even their economic sphere of life (international charity, financial aid, tax-money or aid foundations or corporations taking on projects and the likes abroad).
From this I want to question a possible tendency for social independence, the lightening of the relations we have (from heavy and socially immobile ones) and the expansion of options and opportunities in relations, to also lead to a form of social progress. I have some biased belief in this tendency, which I've been working on for some while to sort out, but here I want to put forward the question if whether or not it is simply not also a condition underlying social progress, to uproot our relations and exploit our social resources from more diverse and abundant sources and from more diverse and abundant forms, to acquire a psychosocial and emotional security for the individual. As a counter-argument there seems also to be a lot of messy transitions, how far these extend and whether they are not just unhealthy anomalies remains a question I cannot answer, but anti-social behaviour in the form of trivialization of other people seems a particular problem that plagues bad school environments and but also extends into grown up life for some people with the willingness to not care about other people but treat them as unimportant in an equation, as trivial, and their emotional and psychological life as uninteresting. Much could be said that things weren't better before, but this form of behaviour remains a constant threat under a society that doesn't bind people in sufficiently strong bonds (bonds strong enough to be exploited for repression of disrespect for instance), and while I suspect it is strongly, at least in my society, on a reverse course to diminish and slowly vane, it remains a strong hindrance to progress, and in the most extreme cases perverts progress, like else harmless technology perverted into destructive weapons.
Another counter-argument to social independence leading to social progress is that the more lightweight relations become the less meaningful they become. Well my argument back towards this is that meaningfulness is not necessarily a positive trait, and if ones relations aren't meaningful to one then that's a fact and not a loss. Given true abundance and access of options and choice, the ways in which you will make meaning out of forming and maintaining relations will depend upon the state of your needs (the needs of the other individual should be part of your own needs if you have developed a sense of other people's state of needs, and so doesn't stand to contradiction).
As the lightening of relations develops further, one will also see that people are able to exploit (read: use with care) each other much more deeply and be willing to invest more in other people because the fear of loosing will be less. In other words, the more ensured our psychosocial and emotional and even economic life is from dangerous turns, the more we will invest in developing those psychosocial and emotional aspects of life so as to attain maximum benefit per unit of danger we allow ourselves. Naïvety flourishes in safe societies, and it reaps a nourishing fruit, to be metaphorical.
Any objections, comments, disagreements?
