[Arlo had said to Krimel]
Why do you bother, Krimel? Platt's pedantic view will never be
anything more than the Good Individual versus the Evil Society.
[Platt responds with a favorite, but irrelevant, soundbite]
My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of
the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and
that's all.
[Arlo to Krimel now]
You see? This address none of the points made, just like responding
to a discussion on climatology by saying "In the sun, amusement parks
are more fun.". Errr... okay, whatever.
In any event, the quote provides half the example given. The seeds of
social change are in the individuals, who receive their agency to
enact such change by assimilating social structures. Voices are
empowered only within a dialogue, meaning arises only in narrative.
And while this narrative constrains what can be said, it also makes
possible the things that can be said.
Consider a child, left on a desert island immediately following
birth, with no human contact, no human interaction at all. Aside from
the reality that survival would be largely improbable, let's say we
are monitoring this individual with strong telescopes from space. Now
what are the chances this individual will construct Falling Water?
Answer. Zero. Only a social being like Wright, who has assimilated
the collective knowledge of his culture, who participates in the
collective dialogue, who is part of a functioning activity system
consisting of labor division, knowledge, finances/power, transmission
and materials production, etc. could be part of Falling Water's construction.
But that same social structure that enabled Wright and others to
partake of this narrative, also gave each the ability to change the
very structures they assimilated. A hand that draws the hand that is,
in turn, drawing it. THAT is the best metaphor for
"individual-collective" that I can think of.
Arlo
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