society and individuals

“ ‘Society’ and ‘individuals’ do not denote separable phenomena, but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing.” In this aspect of his theory Charles Horton Cooley states that the individual or person is actually a part of a larger individual called society. With that statement I will discuss Cooley’s theory and explain my reaction to the theory. Cooley states that “ a person’s self grows out of a person’s commerce with others.” Well doesn’t that create a society? A person’s individual self put together with millions of others selves equals a society. So where does an image that society want, come from? One person? In my opinion most individuals are afraid to express their own opinion. Thus creating a “free market” on the opinion. One person comes up with the opinion and the rest of society, if they feel it is not harmful to themselves, goes along with the opinion. This creates separate subculture in society such as the “punk” subculture or the “thug” subculture. Because one person was willing to put spikes in his hair for an outrageous reaction, others followed to express them selves with o

Life itself is a mystery and wasn"tmt made for us to understand until the moment when our life flashes before our eyes. " In this part of the theory I think he is trying to say that dissecting to far into the relationship of an individual and society is just impossible. The only problem with this idea is that it leaves the idea of originality to be an outcast on society. It is a vast tissue of reciprocal activity. With this part of the theory I agree. So how do you change society Well Cooley said " Our life is one human whole, and if we are to have any real knowledge of it we must see it as such. Now if you get pregnant it is like oh well. In this manner people"tms individual self"tms have come from whom they interact with. ut being an individual but being an individual "society". In the "thug" subculture does in make you hard to wear clothes to big If it does, than how do today's youth in middle class suburbia sport that style, they have never lived in the ghetto and experienced things like true thugs have. In that aspect changing people and their values has changed society and their values. An example of this is teen pregnancy.