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Reification Is Childish Nonsense

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posted on Oct, 13 2015 @ 12:30 AM
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I can't imagine an adult writing the following but it did indeed happen:


the government is a mighty war machine. Theres no way to overthrow it. We live in a police state. The only way I see it happening is a military coup, but the military is part of the corrupt machine. Broadly speaking, its an international facsist state. You cant revolt with guns or taxes or petitions. …ah petitions…a lot like prayer; endless hope and faith
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The above is a perfect example of "reification":


Sociologists from several perspectives have critically addressed reification. In general, reification refers to the act (or its result) of attributing to analytic or abstract concepts a material reality – it is a misplaced concreteness. Through reification people regard human relations, actions, and ideas as independent of themselves, sometimes governing them. The abstraction “society” is frequently reified into something that has the power to act. Society does not act – people do. Reification is an error of attribution; it is corrected by eliminating the hypostatization of abstractions into things or agents.
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Reification is a concept that's almost never mentioned outside of sociology and that's tremendously unfortunate because huge numbers of people unwittingly fall for its traps. For instance (requoting the above):

the government is a mighty war machine. Theres no way to overthrow it.

What kind of a mentality do you have to have to believe that? There's no way to overthrow human action? I thought that's what prisons are for. Not to mention revolutions and wars.

In order to believe the above contention one must ignore all of the civilizations that have literally disappeared into the dustbin of history. You would have to believe that this time it's different and there's something about modern civilization that makes it indestructible. That's childish fantasy.

We live in a police state. The only way I see it happening is a military coup, but the military is part of the corrupt machine.

A police state is just one group of people imposing their will on another group of people. In order to believe the quote above, one must believe that people aren't capable of changing their mind. You would have to believe that Nazi Germany wasn't stopped and apparently the police states of Stalin and Pol Pot and so many other tyrants weren't stopped either. I suppose this time it's different, this time it's unstoppable?

I don't know why people don't want to face the fact that humans create and uphold our current system. You may believe that "God" or "aliens" or "reptilians" are ultimately running the show but none of that matters IMHO.

Every institution on earth only exists because people choose to go along with it and to support it. Remove the support and the institution disappears, period.

That's why reification is childish nonsense.

edit on 13-10-2015 by Profusion because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 13 2015 @ 01:15 AM
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a reply to: Profusion




A police state is just one group of people imposing their will on another group of people. In order to believe the quote above, one must believe that people aren't capable of changing their mind. You would have to believe that Nazi Germany wasn't stopped and apparently the police states of Stalin and Pol Pot and so many other tyrants weren't stopped either. I suppose this time it's different, this time it's unstoppable?


They were only stopped because of all out war. Or the threat of all out war.

History repeats itself.
edit on 13-10-2015 by rockintitz because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 13 2015 @ 03:48 AM
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originally posted by: rockintitz
They were only stopped because of all out war. Or the threat of all out war.

History repeats itself.


History will always repeat itself.



 
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