Here is a great post by Donny from some weeks back that very nicely reviews
the various levels and how they all fit together. I think it nicely puts
to rest any confusion about the 4 levels and their contents and
interaction....
"I've argued on here before that it is un-usefull to look at "society" as
meaning "contra-individual." You will find it far more helpfull to give-up
that notion and take "society" to mean "contra-biological."
The diffrence between a person (social entity) and a homo-sapian (bio-entity)
is the "socializing process." Infants and feral kids and boys raised by
wolves are purly biological entities. But children, hrough the socializing
process, become people. This begins (and this is important; listen up!) by
synching the Bio rhythms to a social rhythm. An animal empties his bladder
whenever he gets the urge. *People* control ourselves. The domestication of
wild animals and the socialization of homo-sapians is the same thing, really,
except that the one is something you do to other species and the other is
something done to your own -- and it is a lot more extensive. Social
entities
are what we call "people," and do note that not all hono-sapians are people.
Here in Tennessee, blacks weren't full people until recently. Women wern't
either. In some parts of the world (India, China...) they still arn't. The
most intersting thing that happens to crazy people is that lose their
"people"
status. They are no longer allowed to manage their own affairs; they lose
their rights to sue me in coart, to correct me in a logical proof, and so on.
Another feature of the socializing process that needs to be noted is that it
is the basis of the S-O distinction. "Personhood" is defined only
reciprically. Only persons get to say who other people are, and if you can't
tell people from non-people then you are not recognized as a person. A grown
man who talks w/ his teddy bear the way a child would is headed for the funny
farm. Children must learn the difference between knowing, mind-ed,
socialized
Subjects and mere objects (be they a rock, a dog, or the criminally insane).
(Hegel termed this 'S-O consciousness'.)
But I digress. To return to my point:
Donny Palmgren = a social entity
Donny Palmgren is a set of moral/social rhythms/patterns imposed over the
natural rhythms of homo-sapian biology. (This is why the personality could
die
w/o the organism dying -- coma, psychotic break, schitzophrenic attack,
join a
cult and get brainwashed by those pesky New Age'rs...) In turn these bio
rhythms are imposed on top of the mechanics/rhythms of "this crude matter"
(as
Master Yoda says). (The organism could die w/o the matter/energy being
destroyed.) And to shift in the other direction: Donny Palmgren, *because*
he
is recognized as a mind-ed, socialized personality -- a reasonable self (in
the sense of "That nut has lost all reason!") -- he is allowed to engage in
the proving activity -- to step up onto that "objective" playing-field of
logic and reason (in the sense of "I'm trying to reason w/ you.").
To keep it as simple (and usefull/convienent) as we can:
InOrgPoVs = the laws (values) of physics/chemestry
BioPoVs = the law of the jungle (Darwinian values of survivle/procreation)
SocPoVs = how "one behaves" ("One does not do such things!") including
fashion
values, manners, "morality" (in the normal sense), and 'the law.'
IntPoVs = the rules (values) of logic and reason (comunicability,
simplicity...)
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