• unenlightened
    9.1k
    No comment therefore.
  • NOS4A2
    9k


    No, they have not been ignored; if anything, they have been taken for granted, on account of taking for granted that people do not exist in a vacuum and that communication is not a solipsistic enterprise.

    Various theories of communication assume that communicators have a shared cultural and linguistic foundation, and that they have a concept of this shared foundation.

    You, on the other hand, appear to be interested in an (hyper)individualistic theory of communication in which no such assumption as above is made.

    It’s more of a pluralist or nominalist account of communication, and in my mind possesses less self-interest and solipsism than your own theory because your universals and general ideas cannot be found anywhere else on earth beyond the factory that is your own imagination.

    That these acts can be reduced to the very people who perform them does not suggest some hyper-individualism, whatever that means, but a consideration of all parties involved in communication, including those who aren’t even speaking. Unlike the concern for the “social”, or “communities of communicators”, and other things forever trapped in the body of he who thinks about them, we can actually look outside ourselves for once and point to an individual person.
  • baker
    5.6k
    It's trivially true that when a person talks, they talk, and not society, or community etc.

    The question is how individual(istic) can a person be, given that they do not live in a vacuum.
  • baker
    5.6k
    So you're just going to let them win, without a fight, 3:0?
  • unenlightened
    9.1k
    ↪unenlightened So you're just going to let them win, without a fight, 3:0?baker

    No. I am not going to waste my time trying to communicate with those who do not wish to communicate. When there is no honesty, language is meaningless. Have you not noticed?
  • NOS4A2
    9k


    It's trivially true that when a person talks, they talk, and not society, or community etc.

    The question is how individual(istic) can a person be, given that they do not live in a vacuum.

    It’s only trivially-true until it hurts us politically, then it’s trivially-false.
  • baker
    5.6k
    I'm not disagreeing, but we have to get by somehow. We can't just give in to silence and let the others rule as they please.
  • baker
    5.6k
    How does it hurt you politically to think of people as individuals?
  • unenlightened
    9.1k
    We can't just give in to silence and let the others rule as they please.baker

    Silence has power. Others can only rule because we take their nonsense seriously out of habit. We have a huge advantage if we can communicate and they can only bullshit.
  • baker
    5.6k
    Silence has power.unenlightened
    Only if one already has power.
    Who cares if I'm silent?
  • NOS4A2
    9k


    How does it hurt you politically to think of people as individuals?

    I don’t get it either. The worst it could do is put in doubt the metaphysics of those who think in crowds.
  • unenlightened
    9.1k
    Who cares if I'm silent?baker

    Who cares if you're not?
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