From: Betty Ragan ragan@sdc.org
Responding to me, Neil Faulkner wrote:
That's the kind of attitude I tend to file under 'anthropocentricity',
but
it would be futile to single you out as a practitioner of this heinous practice since I seem to be in the very very small minority that
considers
it heinous in the first place.
Hmm. Perhaps. I don't know, I certainly don't regard human beings as the center of the universe, and there are plenty of things that I find interesting that have nothing to do with humans at all (astronomy, for example).
Erm, you were the one who said <quote>it's *individual people* who are of primary importance </quote>
But we're talking about sociology and ideology here, and those are *human* things. And when we're talking about human things, I do believe it's important not to lose sight of the existence and importance of the individual.
Ah, but why? Could it be something to do with the importance you place in your own individuality?
(That is a straight, honest question, incidentally, not a sarcy gibe. I don't consider myself terribly important, despite the excessive number of posts I write on my night off, which makes me wonder: Do I consider myself unimportant because of the worldview that I hold, or do I hold that worldview because I consider myself unimportant? However, that worldview relegates the answer itself to the realms of the unimportant so the question needn't really be asked in the first place.)
Have you ever tried looking at people as *animals*?
Oh, absolutely. But I regard the individual as primary with a lot of animals, too. Just ask my cats!
Yeah, I was meaning to ask you. You seem to have a ginger female. That's unusual, isn't it?
You don't need to step aside from the person and lose sight of the individual to be aware of that person as a product of evolution. (Actually, evolutionary psychology is a field that interests me greatly, in my dabbling-layman sort of way.)
Layman? Lay*man*??? Layperson, surely...
Maybe it's just that, IMHO, this [voluntary surrendur of individual
identity within a group] is generally a bad thing. I admit that
one of the reasons I, personally, tend to keep the focus on individual humans is because I value individuality over conformity, and I *want* to keep the focus on individuals. I don't want to cultivate the attitude that leads to that sort of group behavior.
Neither do I actually, I find it very threatening. To the point where I've been unable to listen to live concert recordings (of rock bands. I have no such problem with live recordings of punk bands, for some strange reason). And I suppose I too value individuality over conformity. But conformity exists, and no amount of preference will make it go away.
(FWIW, I don't think any of us are half as unique as we might like to
think
we are.
I agree with this, actually. But just because we share large bundles of traits in common with lots of other people <snip> When you get down to the
*details*, all of us are different. Me,
I'm particularly interested in those details, and I think that's a perfectly valid thing to be interested it. You're not, fair enough.
Less interested, yes. I suppose you could say I can't see the trees for the wood. Whereas the CJs can't see the wood for the trees.
Ideally, I suppose, you should be able to see both, since you can't fully appreciate one without seeing the other.
Neil