diff --git a/contents/english/3-2-connected-society.md b/contents/english/3-2-connected-society.md index 9e952fd5..0e14ec38 100644 --- a/contents/english/3-2-connected-society.md +++ b/contents/english/3-2-connected-society.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Simple and familiar forms of private property, with most restrictions and imposi #### Identity -Prior to modernity, individuals were born into families rooted within kin-based institutions that provided everything, livelihood, sustenance, meaning, and that were for the most part inescapable. No "official documents" were needed or useful as people rarely traveled beyond the boundaries of those they knew well. Such institutions were eroded by the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity in its wake.[^WEIRDest] As European cities grew in the first centuries of the second millennium of the common era, impersonal pro-sociality of citi-zens began to take shape through he emergence of a diversity of extra-kin social institutions such as monastaries, universities and guilds. Paper-based markers of affiliations with such institutions began to supplant informal kin knowledge. In particular, Church records of baptisms helped lay the foundation for what became the widespread practice of issuing birth certificates. This, in turn, became the foundational document on which essentially all other identification practices are grounded in modern states.[^universalreg] +Prior to modernity, individuals were born into families rooted within kin-based institutions that provided everything, livelihood, sustenance, meaning, and that were for the most part inescapable. No "official documents" were needed or useful as people rarely traveled beyond the boundaries of those they knew well. Such institutions were eroded by the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity in its wake.[^WEIRDest] As European cities grew in the first centuries of the second millennium of the common era, impersonal pro-sociality of citi-zens began to take shape through the emergence of a diversity of extra-kin social institutions such as monastaries, universities and guilds. Paper-based markers of affiliations with such institutions began to supplant informal kin knowledge. In particular, Church records of baptisms helped lay the foundation for what became the widespread practice of issuing birth certificates. This, in turn, became the foundational document on which essentially all other identification practices are grounded in modern states.[^universalreg] [^universalreg]: It is worth noting, however, that universal birth registration is a very recent phenomenon and only was achieved in the US in 1940. Universal registration for Social Security Numbers did not even begin until 1987 when Enumeration at Birth was instituted at the federal level in collaboration with county level governments where births are registered. @@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ Thus the individual that the national identity systems seek to strip away from t ### John Dewey's emergent publics -If (in)dividual identity is so fluid and dynamic, surely so too must be the social circles that intersect to constitute it. As Simmel highlights, new social groups are constantly forming, while older ones decline. Three examples he highlights are the for his time still recent formation of cross-sectoral “working men’s associations” that represented the general interest of labor and the just-then-emerging feminist associations and cross-sectoral employers’ interest groups. The critical pathway to creating such new circles was the establishment of places (e.g. workman’s halls) or publications (e.g. working men’s newspapers) where this new group could come to know one another and understand, and thus to have things in common they do not have with others in the broader society. Such bonds were strengthened by secrecy, as shared secrets allowed for a distinctive identity and culture, as well as the coordination in a common interest in ways unrecognizable by outsiders.[^SecretSocieties] Developing these shared, but hidden, knowledge allows the emerging social circle to act as a collective agent. +If (in)dividual identity is so fluid and dynamic, surely so too must be the social circles that intersect to constitute it. As Simmel highlights, new social groups are constantly forming, while older ones decline. Three examples he highlights are for his time, the still-recent formations of cross-sectoral 'working men’s associations' representing the general interest of labor, the emerging feminist associations, and the cross-sectoral employers' interest groups. The critical pathway to creating such new circles was the establishment of places (e.g. workman’s halls) or publications (e.g. working men’s newspapers) where this new group could come to know one another and understand, and thus to have things in common they do not have with others in the broader society. Such bonds were strengthened by secrecy, as shared secrets allowed for a distinctive identity and culture, as well as the coordination in a common interest in ways unrecognizable by outsiders.[^SecretSocieties] Developing these shared, but hidden, knowledge allows the emerging social circle to act as a collective agent. In his 1927 work that defined his political philosophy, *The Public and its Problems*, John Dewey (who we meet in [A View from Yushan](https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-1/eng/?mode=dark)) considered the political implications and dynamics of these “emergent publics” as he called them.[^PublicProblems]Dewey's views emerged from a series of debates he held, as leader of the "democratic" wing of the progressive movement after his return from China with left-wing technocrat Walter Lippmann, whose 1922 book *Public Opinion* Dewey considered "the most effective indictment of democracy as currently conceived".[^Westbrook] In the debate, Dewey sought to redeem democracy while embracing fully Lippmann's critique of existing institutions as ill-suited to an increasingly complex and dynamic wold.