Structures

Posted by I'm the penguin | Posted in | Posted on Friday, September 03, 2010

Today I was thinking about social interactions as at 7 in the morning I turned around of my seat to look at a classmate's notebook, there was nothing interesting, but I just kept staring. He noticed and engaged in interaction. (Now, this is not the average person we're talking about, he's mildly illuminated by a humanistic and spiritual formation without biased religion. This means he knows how to connect with people, he knows how to act.) Now the interaction went something like making funny faces and then sounds.

Doesn't this sound like a social expert?
It does actually.

You see, this person knows how to act like a DUDEBRO with dudes, he knows how to be charming with girls, knows how to be polite yet informal with authorities, and in all generalities, he can read people and act based on the situation. (thing i truly envy) Anyway, what I think happened with our interaction was that he didn't read in me a DUDEBRO, I'm not a chick. Children interaction was the last resort, so that happened.

And while I amused myself with this observation, and the implications that may or may not have with my person, I thought that the analysis he made to people was only possible because of well built social structures and paradigms. While he may not be aware of this, he's a very good follower of the social system, despite his pacific-anarchic ideas.

But this post is not about him. Or reading people. It's more about social structures.

There are some patterns we've always had, and we follow, granting normalized interactions around the same society. Hence the conflicts among different cultures. But in general, there are these rules we have in case a man wants to interact with a woman, when a man interacts with a man, a woman with a woman, and such and such. There are expectations and assumptions about each type of relationship people can have.
Even when people defy society and go against the mold, they're still doing a deconstruction based on a pre-existing structure.

Pre-Programmed relations I imply?
Yes.
Always?
No.

I have seen these social barriers fade, it happens when it is no longer a social construction conversing to another. It is when two people start talking without the shades of society and stains of norms, past the curtains of the institutionalized greeting. But even then there are few rules left one must procure in order to know what comes next. Even in the most rare of relationships.

So, could we possibly build social interaction without society?


Could we be a social being from zero?
Would that end with sky scrappers, bacon and porn again?

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