Legal Disclaimer: No dung beetles were hurt in the creation of this OP. All dung beetles referred to in this OP were talented, professional dung beetles, and were fully compensated for their work.
Margret Thatcher famously said, "And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women...." .
I suspect Thatcher's statement can be boiled down by most of us to make plain how it is in essence perhaps the most characteristic sort of statement that all but a few politicians routinely make.
You see, most politicians are like beetles. Specifically like dung beetles, for they almost always have learned one of the surest ways of fooling people is to take a kernel or two of truth, then pack those kernels all around with a nice thick layer of dung, or BS.
But why is that more effective than many other ways of fooling people?
Perhaps there are several explanations for its effectiveness, but I usually think of it this way: Many of us assume something approximately along the lines that anything with a kernel of truth is wholly true, and anything that's false has no kernels at all. So our critical thinking stops well short of being fully effective when we cease to look much further than to see if something has a kernel or two of truth, or is wholly lacking in any truth.
Add to that, it seems so easy to defeat us when we must grant to someone that, yes, their notion does indeed have a bit of truth to it. Any emotional, motivational, or persuasive impact our argument might have once had is now at least partly lost -- and in those cases where there are more than just a small number of kernels, the persuasive force of our argument is at risk of becoming hopelessly lost.
I do not see those things as the fault of any particular group of people, but most likely an inborn bias that all of us are inclined to. But I only reason for thinking that it's an inborn bias in this case is that it seems to me to require an effort to ameliorate it. That is, it at least appears to be deeply ingrained in us, and hard to root out.
So far as I can see, most politicians on all sides use that way to fool people, and use it frequently.
In contrast to Thatcher's statement, consider Jiddu Krishnamurti's statement on the same subject:
"They are not two separate things opposed to each other, the individual and the collective, though certain political groups try to separate the two and to force the individual to conform to the so-called collective."
They are pretty similar views, are they not? But I think this is a key difference: Clearly, Thatcher entirely dismisses the notion that "society" is in any way important, to say the least, and perhaps she even dismisses the very existence of society as other than a mere concept.
On the other hand, Krishnamurti acknowledges that both things exist (although not necessarily in quite the same way). To my thinking, Krishnamurti makes more sense than Thatcher. But should we not expect that?
By all accounts - and even by all appearances -- Krishnamurti was an exceptionally dispassionate person. He had so few noticeable axes to grind, that I think it is even believable he only had one of much motivational significance. The necessity that he earn a living. Near the end of his life, someone finally got around to asking him why he had chosen the occupation of a spiritual teacher. "It's the only thing I was trained to do.", he replied. That seems most likely true to me.
So I would not expect much self-serving spin from Krishnamurti, but I would at least expect some from nearly any politician, including Thatcher. Politicians, after all, make their careers out of advancing their own and other people's interests. But none of that means she was wrong, nor that he was right.
On the question, then, of whether society does not meaningfully exist, or does in some way meaningfully exist, which side do you think is more accurate than the other?
If you suppose society does not meaningfully exist, why do you think that? To follow up, if your reasons includes that "society is only a concept, only an intangible abstraction", then do you think all "concepts" or "intangible abstractions" are in all ways meaningless?
And if you believe society meaningfully exists, does it exist in the same sense as individuals exist? Or in some other sense? And if those things exist in any difference sense from each other, then which sense, if either, is more important than the other? And what is the difference in meaningfulness between them?
BONUS QUESTION: When Thatcher denied that societies existed, she went on to say that not only did individuals exist, but so did families. Now, I find that combination of notions a bit perplexing. On the one hand, I believe I can see her point. Family members are in some key ways typically closer than most people are to each other.
But I think that, if you first deny that societies exist, then you at once also deny some key reasons for saying families exist. For instance, if you deny societies exist, then even the most strongly bonds that people can feel for each other are dissolved. Your bond of love for your unrelated best friend is dissolved. But if that bond is broken, then is not also the same bond of love for your cousin? So was Thatcher right to say both that families exist and societies do not?
