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SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES
A most engaging assumption of SIT is that mind, self and society are twin born [trine borne?]. There are several interesting questions to consider about this assumption.
1. How is it possible for mind, self and society to 'be' twinborn?
Think about mind: define it as ways of thinking, ways of feeling, and intentions to take action. Symbols are supposed to elicit these same/shared feelings, thoughts, actions in all who hear them. The question, of course, concerns the truth value of such claims.
I think, that for the most part the assumption is true; it is fractally true in primary groups: with friends, family, teachers, nuns and priests, what you hear is what you can believe, trust, and share.
Sometimes parents, priests, professors, salesmen and police lie, cheat, decieve, stage fraudulent forms of social engagment but, by and large the truth value of statements about the collective nature of mind is valid.
However, in mass, class, and racist societies; in conflict occasions generally, such assumptions cannot be taken for granted. Thin about trust, faith, belief and such in conflict settings. Marx may be right; they are ambushes behind which lurk interests hostile to the innocent.
2. How is it possible for self to be shared? Easy...one can't be a professor without students.
I once asked Larry Cross, a good colleague, to give a lecture on marriage and the family to an empty auditorium...He was a bit puzzled by the request but, trusting me, believing in me, hoping I would not make him the fool, he gave the lecture. I use that event to make the point above.
But even when a 'teacher' is present, still there is no guarantee that mind, self and society are one and the same thing. When and only when students learn does a teacher exist sociologically. Same is true for parents [tell your parents you are tired of them; that you are going to look for new parents...see what they say]...for priests, and for cops. [I once told a police officer that he couldn't ticket me for running a stop sign on Christmas Eve since, without people on campus, there was no sociology, hence no social norms, hence no offense. I got a $20 ticket for my effort at instructing police officers on social psychology.
Generally, where there are social status roles and people organized their behavior in ways compatible with legitimately allocated/embodied role expectations, self and society are twin-born.
3. How is it possible for mind, self and society to be twin born? Well that takes a lot of time and a lot of work by parents, teachers, ministers, and a great many others but the short version is that:
a) you take a mewling, squalling, leaking blob of protoplasm...hug 'em, kiss 'em, talk
to 'em...teach them the emotional, referential, and behavioral content of a lot of words
and deed and emotions for about five years...
b) then turn 'em over to others to help socialize the little critters for another ten
years or so...
c) then put 'em through rites of passage in which they are existentially convinced that
they are one of those things we call boys, girls, students, workers, wives and such...
d) then you allocate a statue-role to them and leave them alone to be as human as they can
possibly be...considering the larger social matrix into which we toss 'em.
That's a start; finally, you have to set up a social occasion in which they can:
e) embody a status-role using the four sets of symbols people use to create/re-create social realities: voice, body-talk, costume/body decorations and lines of behavior which correspond to the definition of the situation at hand.
That, dear friends is how mind, self and society come to be twin-born. Lots can go wrong and we might have to re-cycle the beggars but that is another lecture if we do a bad job or if they don't do a good job learning.
Have a very good semester...do as did the chap in The Clerk's Tale [Chaucer]...who said that, Gladly wold he lern; and gladly teche.
T. R. Young