# A Bridge Over Social Facts



## grant-g (Aug 14, 2012)

[h=3]A Bridge Over Social Facts[/h]   



 “…  human life in so far as it is actively engaged in doing something, is  always rooted in a world of men and of man-made things which it never  leaves or altogether transcends.” 
-Hannah Arendt, _The Human Condition _(Doubleday, Anchor:1959)



 America  is at an impasse, a predicament with no obvious way of escape.  I  believe we have the ability to forge our destiny if we can pave a future  beyond the new found limitations of our digital era.  In an attempt to  bring on the next historical dynasty, a golden age really, I want to  bridge some facts of social science that seem to leave off around the  time of my birth, in  1979.  You see, I am nestled between generation X and Y.  I am just a  little younger than people who would fashion themselves as X and quite a  bit older than the next batch.  Here’s my bridge.



Emile  Durkheim (1858-1917) was a French Social Theorist.  Durkheim explained  how society is held together by a system of beliefs.  Social facts, outside influences such as unemployment, constrain the  individual.  Sociology is responsible for the organic union of people in  a society.  When a political system collapses on its citizens, there  is no better solution than social science.  From Durkheim we can  get to Talcott Parsons (1902-1979).  Parsons was a major contributor to  the sociological framework, functionalism.  To Parsons, the social  system is intertwined with smaller social systems and smaller parts of  society which are intertwined further forming the wheel that we often  tag ‘national.’  He died the same year I was born, isn’t that neat!



Functionalism  started with Durkheim.  It’s the analysis of society in its parts, and  their individual contributions to its stability.  Many of today's  problems seem to be rooted in the deconstruction of this framework.  The  “Dot Com” crash was nothing more than a takeover.  As the Internet  rooted itself in the lives of America, the entrepreneurial edge was the  distribution of this technology.  Technologists spread out to offer  customers Digital Subscriber Lines and Web Hosting packages at  competitive rates.  Thousands of small businesses opened to provide  their own versions of DSL.  The telecommunication giants, who really  were hampered by laws obligating them to perform duties for Carrier  Local Exchange Companies (middle men for the small ISP) eventually took  down these networks dedicated to bridging the small ISP into the Local  Loop, so data could travel across your phone line.  When these CLECs  were gobbled up, the small ISP no longer had a basis for their  services.  They began closing their doors systematically, causing a  somewhat moderate, if not short lived, economic slump.  But when the  Banks failed, we were not able to rebound without the Governments help.   To me, there is no worse combination, adding to our current financial  problems, than it being an election year.  Late June we would have seen a  huge return to stability but the President is too busy trying to remain  in office.  If we can put Barack Obama back in the driver seat for four  more years And, when he terms out in 2016, if we could possibly fill  the Presidency with, get this prediction, Pennsylvania Senator Pat  Toomey, American historians would be plenty busy documenting our latest  Golden Age.  Prosperity brought on by Obama’s final four years as well  as a passing of the torch to a Republican that is not trying to  instigate some sort of Biblical fall of Civilization.



So  it’s back to Hegel’s Universal Idea, Aurelius’ Universal Reason, the  creative and collective trend, like personal computing in the 90’s and  00’s, like the ‘Survivor’ reality show, the national quo, that  individual parts of society can appreciate together creating stability,  giving room for these parts successful individuality.  



The worlds not going to end… 



The  only thing that’s over is the productive lifespan of a post war  generation, that controls their country and sees correlation between  their successive generation and letters that sometimes signify  elimination (‘X’) or sound like a dismissive question.  I see X and Y as  coordinates, created before America by thinkers whose messages are 

still  true, and can see me past this attack sequence of self destruction laid  down by my predecessor.  

They are too young to be war heroes, with a  bent, to see that history ends with them.  These man made failures of  the social system were designed to keep their children at their feet.   I, for one, am going to be examining these ideas more deeply in an  attempt to see through this sabotage of prosperity.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Aug 15, 2012)

Hi grant, some notes in red below then I'll make a couple comments.



grant-g said:


> *A Bridge Over Social Facts*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You need a clear thesis statement to show precisely what it is you're trying to argue, and you need to make that line of argumentation clear throughout your essay. The connections between your paragraphs are not clear at all. Be careful about your vocab, too, words like "deconstruction" have specific uses I don't think you intend.

If you're interested in the ways that financial institutions and social structures constitute culture, you might try reading Marx and Foucault. If you want to think about how media constitutes culture, you might try Kittler.

Best of luck with the piece.


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## grant-g (Aug 15, 2012)

Hi,  Thank you for your help.  As I read the red I thought back to an early mental block where I really couldn't develop what I was itching at.  Somehow as I was stumbling on these names, what they were saying seemed relevant and I was trying to take the blame (in a way, still that doesn't explain it) hmm...

My closing sentence was there to admit that I haven't even really studied Durkheim or Parsons.  My target audience were G + users, people who are not well read but enjoy to.  Like me   Thanks for Marx, Foucault and Kittler.  I'm reading _The Human Condition_ and Hannah Arendt has studied Marx.


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## playingthepianodrunk (Aug 16, 2012)

Society will be the downfall of man. Not the other way around. The world is too far gone to be fixed. The social sciences, I believe, are a corrupted field. Such study is what gave men like Hitler power. Each individual must learn for themselves, outside the levels of society, what is right and wrong. More importantly they must train themselves to be able to make those decisions. Society is a structure based on the principle that most people are too stupid to be left to their own devices. Humanity must learn to operate without the punishment reward system that has powered civilized people since we had towns. Read some Nietzsche, particularly On the Genealogy of Morality.
Our political structure is an elaborate show created to give the illusion that we have a say in the matter. And that's how it's been forever if you ask me. On the scale you're speaking of each and everyone of us is meaningless. But in the world I live in every single individual is important. I don't worry about these things any longer. I used to but it only leads to unhappiness. You see I didn't even know NASA landed another rover on the moon. I'm not sure why it matters but that's for another subject. I live under a big rock and I like it a lot.


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## grant-g (Aug 23, 2012)

Thank you for the reply.  sometimes I post my blogs on here because I get more specific reactions.  its funny, the day I wrote this I had a little bit of writers block and so I dug up a couple of books that I got recently and in brief did some quick summaries to get the ball rolling.  I really don't know very much about the stuff I was talking about and I see it shows.  it goes back to the methodology of writing and that I didn't revise, revise, revise.  i think if I spent very much more time on it, it may have been scrapped.  

I'll have to read _Genealogy of Morality_, i think I have sections of it in a couple textbooks.  I enjoy the section of _Beyond Good and Evil _that I had read.  I do find the turn of the 20th century and up to about WWII very interesting.  Science and Philosophy were at a particular peak and whatever can be said about atrocity just blocks people from learning about many different masters of the universe.  thanks again eaceful:


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## Ddesmond (Sep 28, 2012)

Well written.  I like Lasm's critique and the only thing I can add is to tell you to look again at your use or not of apostrophes. 

For example: creating stability, giving room for these parts{'} successful individuality. 
The world{'}s not going to end…


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