Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 01:19:39 EDT
Subject: Re: [HAB:] Communicative Action and Individualization


 
In a message dated 8/29/2004 3:07:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:

Those  who think they are
autonomous probably aren't.  They just happen to  agree with the 
ideas or practices of those who have the power to make  these 
happen. One can't be really autonomous and survive for long in this  
society. 


I selected this part of your post because this has more substance,  imho.  
The rest about mate choice according to the psychology and  anthropology 
literature is largely erroneous because it is found that people  mate up on the basis 
of resemblance, so it's a like selects like situation and  not opposites 
attract.  Mate selection is differentiated by gender with  female strategies being 
quite different from male strategies.  For example,  your statement that 
commitment is important is a trait important to females, as  you know males are 
more interested in creating as many offspring as possible  while females are 
more interested in rearing and quality of rearing. Anyway, I  want to get at 
autonomy and individualization.
What I think is happening aside from extreme ideologization of human  
relationships is that the actual attainment of individuality is necessarily  narrowed 
down to a small window during the lifespan.  I think it is not  unreasonable 
to consider the coincidence or synthesis of autonomy and  dependency, but 
autonomy implies the selection or choice on which groups,  others, and opinions 
one thinks is necessary to be dependent.   This would imply that one has freed 
oneself from historical attachments in terms  of one's personal moral 
philosophy, or at least reflected upon previous moral  philosophies and made a 
reasonable choice (considering the ever relevant triad:  truth, reason, and 
objectivity).  Now, is this an empirical reality: are  there really even a few 
individuals existing?  I think the answer to this  necessitates understanding that 
being a replicant of one's familial or ethnic  belief system is NOT the measure of 
autonomy, but that neither is any universal  or absolute value system and 
that every judgment depends on circumstances.   OTOH, domination and hegemony 
works by divide and conquer, or alienation, so  that the idea of separatism does 
not meet any standard of autonomy.   Becoming an individual, however, does not 
seem to me to be a presence in our  society and I sense that this has serious 
implications for any theory of  communication which takes seriously the 
problem of distortion, deception, or  invalidity.
 
Fred Welfare


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