Tresy Kilbourne's recent post is very sensible, asking for proof of the viability of a 'group' operating within the sole agenda of individuals, which is what I am gathering is the idea of anarchy. The problem with a society being based on the privileging of the individual is that it presupposes the inherent 'goodness' and good intentions of all individuals. Very Socratic, but I have grave doubts of its reality. It also suggests an individual nature entirely free of preconditioning, of socialization which closed the mind; it suggests that all individuals are completely rational, that they all base their decisions on hard data and never operate from a first set of 'given and unexplored' assumptions. I don't think that human cognition works that way; but rather feel that it works within a group-based logic, a group-based regime of knowledge. Certainly, the individual is the agent to explore and critique these assumptions - but most of us don't, and we can't live our lives in a constant state of deconstruction. Therefore - how can you have a society - without common and reasonably stable values and forms of behaviour? I think it is a very serious error to split human behaviour into two poles - that of the individual and that of the group, and consider that each can have their own separate life and that one is good and one is bad (individual vs state). Rather - I see that, in the human biology, the two forms are inherently different and inherently bonded and interactive. You can't have one without the other; the goal is to keep both sides flexible and interactive - but not to do away with either. Edwina Taborsky Bishop's University Phone: (819)822.9600 Ext. 2424 Lennoxville, Quebec Fax: (819)822.9661 Canada JIM 1Z7