tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post6832343287807142610..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: DURKHEIM'S SUICIDE A MICRO-TUTORIAL PART THREERobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-3712948131399405182011-12-14T04:30:17.681-05:002011-12-14T04:30:17.681-05:00If I understand you, I agree with you completely. ...If I understand you, I agree with you completely. Notice that I said we do NOT choose who we become in the process of growing up. Hence much of what we become is, in a sense, invisible to us, even though it may be immediately obvious to someone from another culture [how I stand, for example, or how I talk, or how I express pleasure or disappointment or anger.]<br /><br />Am I misunderstanding you?Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-72232744478075438822011-12-14T04:24:52.384-05:002011-12-14T04:24:52.384-05:00I have a reservation about your third paragraph-- ...I have a reservation about your third paragraph-- not that I exactly think it is wrong. I think you are right in suggesting that to another personthe ways which I think, speak, behave like a person from the USA are obvious, but a person not from the USA sees things the USA person does not see--- and that means there are cultural things --- features of who I am---that I am unaware of, and so cannot really be said to choose.formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84939656098643587682011-12-14T01:23:01.922-05:002011-12-14T01:23:01.922-05:00I don't know the book at all. When I get home...I don't know the book at all. When I get home, I will see whether I can find it in the UNC library.<br /><br />Thanks for the suggestionRobert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-89684521644637450482011-12-13T20:25:23.971-05:002011-12-13T20:25:23.971-05:00Have you A Nervous Splendor:Vienna 1888-1889, by F...Have you A Nervous Splendor:Vienna 1888-1889, by Frederick Morton? It's a lovely history of the city, and some of it's notable characters (Prince Rudolf, Bruckner, Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Freud, Herzl), and while it's more "literary" than scholarly in tone and substance I think it's well worth reading. <br /><br />I mention it because the book is essentially the story of the zeitgeist of the city, a spirit that will be defined by the suicide of the Crown Prince. Morton argues, indirectly in some cases, directly in the case of the prince, that the whole city lived under a fatalistic gloom. My point is that much of what Morton describes resonates with what you've written about Durkheim.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781744385645937568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-18274195092375366312011-12-13T04:51:20.004-05:002011-12-13T04:51:20.004-05:00Don, I think that observtion is basically correct....Don, I think that observtion is basically correct. This is one reason why reading these classics is useful. It calls into questions concepts we use every day without reflection.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-68751483010186595092011-12-12T12:55:57.689-05:002011-12-12T12:55:57.689-05:00Aside from refuting "methodological" ind...Aside from refuting "methodological" individualism, Durkheim also raises the possibility that 'individual' is itself a social construct that is contingent historically, anthropologically,economically, etc. Furthermore, the logical challenge that he helps pose is that of a Dialectical concept of Individual to a prevailing Atomistic one. For example, the American 'rugged individual' is an Atomistic Capitalist concept that is, perhaps, a secularization of some ingrained theological concept of 'soul'.Don Schneierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12751277350617015241noreply@blogger.com