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RE: Are countries living organisms?

in #science7 years ago

Interesting post. Herbert Spencer referred to societies as social organisms and from this analogy the functionalist school of sociology was born. Societies are indeed akin to organisms, but the basic building blocks, the cells so to speak, are families not individuals. Individuals only exist in political theories. There are a number of other problems you could address in this article. For instance, at the beginning you said:

In many ways, if we are willing to call ourselves alive, we should need to call the countries living organisms, and likewise, if we are to claim that countries are not living, are we even living

I understand you meant to explain your analogy further, but this could be conceived of as the composition fallacy. By the same logic, I could say that oxygen atoms must be alive since living things are made up of them.

You also seem to contend that countries respond to external events that threaten their survival, which isn't necessarily true. The distinction between government and society is crucial here. Governments respond to threats against their power. Societies respond to threats, perceived or real, against their well being. The two can merge, and often do, but the incentives for people at the top are much different than for your average Joe going along to get along.

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Thank you for your response. I like the idea of families replacing individual people as the cells that make u people so I will revise my ideas; they are still young and not well formulated but you comment is helpful.