Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: re: old "society&abortion" article
Message-ID: <4222@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Aug-84 08:07:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4222
Posted: Thu Aug 16 08:07:16 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Aug-84 08:07:16 EDT
References: <974@shark.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 83

Brian, you are right that ``we are not clones''. So when you speak of 
yourself as ``a member of X society'' then you are only identifying
the elements of the society with which you would like to be
identified. These elements may even be specious generalisations for
all we know. The problem arises when a few people say the same words
over and over so that people become aware of a label and begin to
think that the label is the people.

So everybody knows what ``the ME generation'' is supposed to be from
media coverage. The problem is that there are a lot of people who
do not fit the stereotype of ``the ME generation'' just as there are
a lot of people who aren't stereotypical Blacks, White Southerners,
Policemen, you name it. ``Society'' is just a catch-all stereotype.

And when someone says things like ``Society demands X'' what they
are actually saying is that ``Certain people, who claim to be
representative of ``society'' demand X''. It will be interpreted
as ``everybody wants X'' or ``everybody who is not a nut-case
wants X'' to the extent that one believes that those certain
people actually do represent ``society''.

But this is more a matter of ideology and propeganda than
anything else. If Joe Elected-Member-Of-Government stands
up and says ``I am elected and therefore representative of
society and societey wants me to vote yes on issue foo'' a
whole lot of people will say yes, he does represent society.

What they do not uinderstand is that Joe Elected may never
have mentioned issue foo during his last campaign, or that
he may have, and most constituents wanted him to vote no, but
more than that they really didn't care about issue foo and voted
for him because his opposition were unattractive in some way,
or even that it is likely that more than half of the members
of his constituent who were eligible to vote either did not vote
or voted against him so that he was in by a plurality alone.

So Joe may not be representing that much after all. The problem is
that the more speeches Joe gives the more people will come to
believe that Joe is actually representing society, simply because
they hear it so often. This causes disgruntlement among the
members of the society which Joe claims he is representing (if
they do not think that their actual desires are being put
forward) and causes outsiders to think that society is what
Joe says that it is.

So if Joe says ``Christian society demands that evolution be
thrown out and creationism taught in schools'' he has done
several bad things. In the first place, he has got the
Christians who are not fundamentalists and think that
creationism is wrong upset with him. In the second place he
has got the Fundamentalists who are arguing for equal time
with evolution upset with him. The Fundamentalists who
agree with what Joe says may be estatic, but the rest of
the non-Christian world gets another indication that
Christian=that subset of Fundamentalist Christians.

Not good at all. But it is the nature of democracy that the
people interested in making the rules give as their justification
for making the rules that they are ``doing the will of the people''.
Mostly, of course, this is a big con and they are only ``doing the
will of some of the people -- inparticular enough to keep me elected''.
The number of issues on which all members of any ``society'' agree is
so small that the usefulness of the word at all is very questionable.
It suggests a unity where there is actually none. So why use the word?
I know that politicians use it to intimidate people who disagree
with their proposals (under the ``society says means if you do not
agree you are a nutcase'' interpretation) and I see media people
using this form of argument by intimidation all the time.

Assuming that you do not want to intimidate another into backing
away from his beliefs out of fear of humiliation, what other
purpose is served by this word? besides being short enough
for newspaper headlines?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura

ps -- who says that ``being well liked'' or ``fitting in'' is
	something which should be guaranteed before a child is
	allowed to exist or grow up? There are a lot of people
	out there who, rightly or wrongly, believe that they are
	not well liked and do not fit in...but they are still
	happy to be alive.