A
tale of four chocolates
Act One
Sociology gives us tools for the analysis of
historical movements of our societies.
I recently talked to a friend about a sociological
work I am doing. He asked if I am studying individuals, “no just groups”, I
responded and than added “in fact yes, I do study individuals to infer about
the groups.”
Groups are important. They are giving us an identity,
guide us and give us meaning to our everyday life. Our professional, religious,
ethnic and economic groups are all inter-related. Erich Fromm sees something similar into his
definition of social character as “shared core of a character structure that is
common to most members of a specific culture or society.” He says that groups give us “frame”. Emile
Durkheim sees an individual as a part of something bigger than himself through
collective effervescence.
Individual can not survive without a group, I agree.
But a blind belief in a group might have negative consequences. For example, it
might result in a creation of uniformed groups that my look the same. We might
end up with not having anymore a “control group”, a group to which we usually
make reference when doing our sociological research. It is something that John Stuart Mill saw in his work “On
Liberty”: “Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the
same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their hopes and
fears directed to the same objects”.
An introduction: By destiny or for any other reason my family is well
scattered around all continents. I have uncles, aunts,
cousins and whatever you want living in a thousand different time zones. You get up in the middle of the night and you
lose the sense of where exactly you are and to whom you spoke at 3am.
When visiting, my uncles always brought me chocolates
and I used to name them by chocolates they brought. There was a “Milka”
a “Toblerone” an “Oh Henry” and an “After Eight” uncle.
“Milka” uncle was concerned with social problems of
population and spent some time working in western Europe.
“Toblerone” uncle was a doctor of endocrinology and
spent much of his time discussing and influencing politics. He had a belief
that we all should share his views. Our home was open to all and we had family
and friends from all spheres, from the extreme right to extreme left to the
extreme center. We believed that we were free to express our views. My
“Toblerone” uncle considered that we might be ‘on the other side of the fence’,
or that we were in his view some sort of a ‘black sheep’ parts of the family. From
our perspective we found his views dogmatic. We loved him dearly. The dogmatic
“Toblerone” uncle.
“After Eight” uncle got married with a flight
attendant, my aunt at that time, and visited us after many years and I had a
chance to meet my cousin.
Dearest of all my uncles was my fourth uncle, the “Oh
Henry” uncle. At that time Montréal’s Jean Coutu and Pharmaprix stores were
close to his work and after he finished teaching and supervising his students,
he always brought us (to me and my cousins), “Oh Henry” chocolates.
He was a passionate fisherman. For fishing bites, “Oh
Henry” uncle used the natural ones, usually after rain that he collected in nearby
parks. I once accompanied him. It was a bit late at night, and we were on the corner
of Saint-Denis and Prince-Arthur streets. A guy came near us and asked
something, a situation was a bit odd, and my uncle, with a flashlight in one
hand, I was holding another in my hand, said to me “quick, turn your flashlight
toward the sky and circle with it, I will do the same with mine.” We both
turned our flashlights for about half a minute. I even managed to turn around
myself for better effects. The guy left, totally surprised. “Oh Henrry” uncle concluded
“Remember, whenever in your life you find your self in an awkward situation,
react crazier than the subject/object in front of you. Crazier, better.” His
words are still resonating. My “Oh Henry” uncle.
Some of my uncles literary “parachuted” and appeared
after 20 years. This particular one did not bring me a chocolate but he appeared
‘celestially’ on my computer and brought us interesting stories. The time zone
was about 12 hours difference and sometimes we found each other talking late at
night. Real twilight zones soirées. A twilight zone uncle.
The fifth uncle is related to twilight zone uncle. A hyper
intelligent, a rational thinker, a pragmatic and endlessly interesting. We even
arrived to the nature/nurture
arguments, when talking to cerebral and twilight uncles. A cerebral
uncle.
In conclusion of this first Act of a tale of four
chocolates: danger of uniform
societies might be there but there is still hope. I believe that conversations
with my uncles were in form what Hegel meant with thesis/antithesis/ synthesis
theory. Our family being “on the other side of the fence” I think we were a
thesis, the “Toblerone” ‘s group was antithesis and somehow, we are all waiting
for synthesis to arrive.
I also believe that
our discussions were even more interesting as our perspectives carried characteristics of
places where we lived. We came from different parts of the world. We symbolized
what Erich Fromm referred to social character. His social character is well
present as it is forming us and binding us in our differences of opinions.
To end with Mill’s
quote
“…there is always hope when people are forced
to listen to both sides; It is when they attend only to one that errors harden
into prejudices and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being
exaggerated into falsehood.”
Because,
“…the interests of truth require a diversity
of opinions.” Mill “On Liberty”
To be continued…
