My first post

So I guess this would be it. I've had this account for over 3 months now, but I just haven't posted anything so far. I did however enjoy browsing other people's entries, like the Michel Foucault/Noam Chomsky debate, reading comments, and somehow they made me feel like everything interesting has already been said. Anyway, since today I have to finish a huge project for school, I've decided it would be the perfect time to start creating some legacy here.
I would just like to start by saying a few words about myself, although I realize I can't give you full access to my cultural background just in several lines I'm writing now. I can however try. I study Sociology (actually I'm majoring in Human Resources Management but that was another one of the choices I later came to regret). I'm currently fascinated by Karl Marx, well not necessarily what he writes, but how he writes, his research method, and his opinion on how scientific truth can be reached. I am extremely deterministic, I entirely support using statistics in social sciences as I'm convinced that in theory we could be able to determine someone's behavior if only we had access to information regarding his previous actions, and to past events in his life which I think entirely shape who he is right now. I've often been criticized for my beliefs, but to me free will is just something invented, a concept that does not have any correspondent in reality (at least in the manner it has been defined by philosophers), and it was created simply because society needed it. How else would we be able to punish certain actions or take credit for any accomplishments, if there would be no responsibility? Marx says that material conditions are the ones shaping one's beliefs and I tend to agree. I believe in freedom, but not as something idealistic, I believe we have to be free to let the world create us and that means act accordingly to what we believe in, because those beliefs are a reflection of our past and of the social context we live in. I've discovered the same holistic perception of the world in Emile Durkheim, and to me that was great, I suddenly felt less alone.
I think I'll end my brief introduction here, I just needed to make a few things clear and let you know ( well, if anyone's reading ) where I stand, as I think probably all my posts will evolve around the idea of free will, and explaining human behavior in a certain way that's compatible with determinism, but also I'll be trying to argument that we need "free will" and "freedom" but maybe work a little bit on what exactly those concepts stand for. Also, my English is not so bright, I think I'm better at French but c'est la vie.
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Tue, May 19, 2009  Permanent link

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