Jon wrote: "... for Simmel [...], a social form [...] always occurs
in tandem with it's oppositional form. Where there is freedom, there is
constraint, for example."
I had not come across this before, so wondered what some of the
social forms might be. Love, perhaps? But that could have more than one
oppositional form - hatred, of course, but also, maybe indifference, or
dispassionate regard. Since, arguably, it could have more than one
oppositional form, does this mean that love is not a social form?
Jon wrote: "Jean Baudrillard, on the other hand, argues that, in
the current technological culture, technology [...] has become completely
intertwined with our everyday life. Technology has come to be [...] a form
that exists in isolation with no binary. [...] We called it a "fatal form"
because, following from Simmel, a singular form allows no interaction."
I'm a little puzzled by this binary notion, and the proposition
that technology does not have an oppositional form. If we do not have a
word for something, does that mean it does not exist? For example, we
happen to have a word for 'non-freedom' or 'opposite-of-freedom' called
constraint, so we say freedom has a binary. I cannot immediately think of a
word for 'non-technology' of 'opposite-of-technology', but should I
therefore conclude there is no oppositional form?
What are we doing when we use a word/concept, but say it has no
oppositional form? It looks almost like I am saying I cannot define it at
all. What does defining 'term x' mean, if it is not implicitly saying that
there is also 'not-term x', i.e. in some sense an opposite of 'term x'?
Thoughts, anyone?
Alexander
******************************************************************************
Alexander Massey, <alexander.massey@edstud.ox.ac.uk>
DPhil student, Department of Educational Studies, Oxford University, 15
Norham Gardens, Oxford OX2 6PY, England
"What appears to be a sloppy or meaningless use of words may well be a
completely correct use of words to express sloppy or meaningless ideas."