: More like blades of grass, independant and whole anywhere they grow but together you can call them a lawn.Same difference, matter of perspective, at atom size they'll all look unique and independant.
: When society is already an authoritarian state then you concede that it is simply a power play. In this context, without a right answer. Hence we must consider what mankind is, not just say "hey, just accept it - if you dont you just become a tyrant"
No, the answer is to have a free society, within which we all play a conscious and active part, living through the State rather than against the state. We have to recognise our interdependance, and *us* it, rather than pretend its not there, which leads us, inevitably, to tyranny.
: The key to it is for the liberal individual to make a value judgement and ask if the impediment will be given his sanction (ie his participation).
Which it inevitably must if he wants to go on living as teh liberal individual with his private property (someone has to recognise property rights, someone has to gaurantee money, tehre must be a master, even if an imaginary one.).
: Hence the tribe (in the form of its leading clique), where exile is death, has the most horrendous power to subjugate others and history has been a move away from the tribe toward individuality and increasingly chosen participation. You have more choice now, the pressure to be submerged is still great but you can survive individuated.
Yes, Hegel describes the process whereby such tribal mentality is overcome: since tribalism is specificity, what is needed is a universalisation, a conrete universalisation, of the State. Hegel's example being the Hellenic Polis.
: Which can only be done by exchanging mutually agreed upon value for it. Unless your in the federal reserve when mass theft will do.
Or by gambling, or by extortion, or by rent extraction, much of which does not require additional creation of value. And of course, not everyone can be productive, teh sick, weak, diabled cannot work thusly.
: There is more alienation to be had amongst others than you could ever impose upon yourself. There is more alienation to be felt regarding the world when your view of it is second hand than when it is owned and known by you. There is more inhibition to be had when submerged into 'society' than when individuated from it.
I never said we have to be 'submerged', as SDF noted, individuation and the doctrines of individualism are totally distinct. Knowing teh world 'second hand' is a by-product of the a priori alienation from Others around you,a nd your society.
: If you participate in a cricket match (your fave analogy) and lose it may not be through you, but your participation is chosen and voluntary. Likewise the market. If it fails it may not be 'your fault' but having chosen to invest in it, it is your responsibility to deal with your personal loss.
In a cricket macth, if we lose it is our fault, we played as a team, and as a team were not up to it. If as a team though, we had a rule that only the first three people were allowed to bat, and keep all teh runs to ourselves, and we treated that rule as some sort of natural law, then it owuld be more like teh market. Specifically if those three kept throwing teh matches for their own personal gain (bookies).
: Despite this risk, and despite heavy artificial intereventions (of force) the global economy continues to grow in abundance of wealth. Communes develop where people choose not to be in the 'market'. Dictatorships develop (or grow insiduously ala USA) where powermongers desire control of the wealth of others.
Yes, abundance Grows, but who for, the numbers of impoverished grow as well, correspondingly.
: I doubt socialism to be a potential in more than the smallest homogenous groups. Hence if it is to succeed it requries slow growth by example, there will never be a world revolution. History shows a move away from the open collectivism of pre historic man, through tyrranies of the strong (alpha males to empires), tyrranies of the many (democracy) and the next stage would appear to be either a reversal to tyrrany (pendulums eh!) or a move to a more devolved mode of political power - devolved in terms of numbers and power.
Or totally devolved into direct democracy, on a world wide scale. Economic abundance gives us the possibility of a unviersalised socialist State...
