The Glade 4.0

Actually, slang is far more useful than academic speech.

Aizle:

So, you have these expectations of what language use denotes certain likelihoods about a person's education or intellect, where they are from, perhaps ethnicity or social identity?

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I wouldn't call them expectations. More like observed tendencies. People with higher levels of education tend to speak in a certain manner, etc. Similarly people from Boston have a tendency to speak with a particular dialect. It's certainly not 100% accurate, but it can provide some data points about someone, especially when combined with other information.

Aizle:

So how did you learn these observed tendencies?

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Mostly by paying attention to details about people. In short, observation.

Aizle:

"Observation" indicates an active interest in the information to be gained or delineated by the act of watching, as opposed to a more passive form of aggregation. Consequently, I should conclude that you either believe or think that "learning" requires some sort of effort?

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Yes, I think that would be fair to say. It is certainly possible to learn something "by osmosis" by just being so immersed in it that it's almost impossible not to learn something. But most learning does require the learner to be receptive to it and put in some effort.

Fair enough. What you've just stated is a particular cultural precept unique to the West and not substantiated in actual practice when it comes to things like values, social mores, or language. Ferdinand de Saussure, among others (which includes the notoriously socialist libertarian Antonio Gramsci), forced everyone to re-evaluate how we think, what we think, and how we come to think. The complexities of structuralism extend far beyond language and lay the foundation for such horribly misappropriated words such as Deconstructionism, Surrealism, and Post-Modernism. As it applies to this conversation, we're more concerned with Social Constructivism, which is the study of how societies and social identities come to be.

Identity constructs are regressive. The individual does not comprise society; rather, the individual is ultimately a manifestation of social order. For example, American Exceptionalism (in the purely leftist, academic sense) resulted in Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, and soft imperialism. That, however, overlooks the cultural value and adherence to individual exceptionalism core to the American value set. Individuality, as it were, exists not because it is some sort of prima facia reality but because society instructs its components to believe it to exist. The best example is social hostility toward elective communes and cloistered communities. Take, for example, the unsubstantiated claims of polygamy and child impregnation in Texas a few years ago. Federal Law Enforcement, State Law Enforcement, and Public Opinion all converged on the issue with undue suspicion and hostility, despite there being no evidence of crime or abuse, because the community chafed against the normalized ideal presented to American public. The real crime was eschewing mainstream value sets and establishing a close community.

Or, more personally, the language and arguments you make reflect values that you neither developed yourself nor were taught by any specific individual. Rather, much like language, these ideas were internalized through osmosis and proximity. And that's where the media comes in play. It is not that the media is liberal by design or conspiracy, it is liberal because of a collective culture that extends as far back as national print media in this country. When liberal meant Jefferson and conservative meant Jackson, the media was in the right (as in correct). There were human rights issues; there were liberty issues. There were all sorts of things that the media did its job to correct. However, the social fabric of the United States has changed. There have been phenomenological shifts: that is to say, over time the social power structure changes mostly without conscious or directed influence from its constituents. But, the one thing that remains constant, as far as the United States goes, is individual exceptionalism. Consequently, history is taught vis-a-vis a series of individual markers that are convenient. Significance and impact are imparted retroactively. This is not said to disparage Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X or Anne Frank or whoever as exceptional individuals with regard to the American social consciousness; it's simply a reality. America navigates history by landmarks created from individuals rather than the fluidity of changing social construction.

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I don't particularly disagree with what you say, however I don't think addresses everything.

Certainly society exerts tremendous pressures on the individual and absolutely influences them. However, how that individual responds to those pressures is often unique. I'm reminded of the explosion of the punk movement during my youth. Now certainly that was also a group with it's own pressures, but ones that were counter to much of the overarching society of the time.

Further, while there most definately is a "herd" mentality with people as a whole, there are absolutely individuals that spring out of the herd from time to time that affect society. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good example.

So Khross which did come first, the chicken or the egg?

I am not sure how to construct this question so please try to muddle through it... Do societal norms emerge from individuals who have similar values, beliefs, etc. banding together or do individuals develop similar values, beliefs, etc. because society imparts these constructs to them?

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I'm not Khross, but I think the answer is "both." The former is much more rare than the latter, though, as the latter is a day-to-day thing, affecting the vast majority of the world's population (absorbing and internalizing their respective societies' mores and values, with varying size and scope of "society," too, I'm sure), while the former typically only occurs, successfully, at least, in a relatively few, rather historically notable, occasions.

I'd suggest that the colonization of America would be one of those few, for instance. Or, perhaps that's merely me internalizing the notion of American Exceptionalism. Who knows?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Thanks Kaffis, I tend towards that line of thought as well but unless I am misreading Khross is stating that individuals are a reflection of society which begs the question of how society's are formed, where their values come from, how their lexicon comes into existence and who or what shaped their beliefs.

It is well and good to state individuals derive these from society but without knowing how societies adopted them to begin with and more relevantly how they adapt over time to incorporate new ones then basically it is chicken vs. egg.

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Hopwin:

The requires a treatise on Hegel, Heidegger, and Marx.

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Well, society isn't one all-encompassing thing. Even with globalization of communication, we still retain many different layers and microcosms, that all influence us in concert. The different combinations will result in some of the differences from individual to individual.

Our nation is certainly a layer of society. It governs our public school curricula and exerts legal pressures on our mores and values. Some matters of policy, particularly when wielded by gifted leaders, will also exert influence, such as the creation and codification of "the American Dream" by post-War political leaders.

Our churches, or temples, or mosques, are also a layer of society. They will exert influence, as well, if you come into contact with them regularly.

Your family is a layer of society. You spend the majority of your early formative years absorbing your family's mores and values, and it's the springing point from which the rest of these work. The majority of families in our nation, through generations of similar pressure and influence, will have fallen into one of a few different patterns.

Neighborhoods are a layer of society. Gang-heavy inner city neighborhoods will apply different pressures and influences than Leave It to Beaver suburbia, which will apply different pressures and influences than wealthy, arty inner city enclaves.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

/popcorn.

Do tell

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