[Air-l] conceptual lexicon

[elw at stderr.org]

Yes/no.

"Collective identity", in the sense that you seem to be requesting 
support/affirmation/accolades for, depends on the recognition of 
'solitaries', small groups, and ever-larger collectives - as well as the 
boundaries between them.

I would put forth that, first, this is not the only sense in which one can 
consider collective identity.  As Jeremy says - it is hard to get there 
from here, both cognitively and philosophically.

Second, there are ways of knowing or establishing or promoting 'identity' 
that don't rely on atomic/bounded/holarchic fences (or rupturings) for 
their own promotion.

Some folks from IS would say that things like faceted classification are 
(an) answer to this kind of boundary-work.  Provided that one understands 
that "an" answer is what you're going for, this works.  It isn't the only 
answer, though - other options, other answers, have always-already been 
ripe for the uptake.

Collective identity?  Yes.  Thousands of them.

Does the aoir listserv have a collective identity?  Well, probably several 
hundred thousand different possibilities...

Are any of *those* meaningful?  Contextually, yes, probably.

How to evaluate strength-of-meaning for individual contexts, rather than 
getting stuck in philosophical morass, is an individual problem.

Even our generic topic on the list, "internet research", means more things 
to people on the list than we have words to describe.


--elijah


> Umm, I don't think we dodged it, it is just that it can't be
> described to you given the framework that you require.  It exists,
> you can see it all over.  The clearest physical expression of
> collective identity is usually expressed relation to in
> architecture, local customs, and related activities.   Do three
> friends always hug when they meet, what always happens in groups that
> takes no individual decision... tons of things.  Some families have
> collective identities, some schools do, and almost all military units
> do too, which was one of the major military critiques of the 'army of
> one' campaign.


>> I'm of course not questioning that collective behavior is distinct from 
>> atomistic or unitary behavior. I'm questioning whether "collective 
>> identity" meaningfully exists, anywhere - a question you and Elijah 
>> both dodged, even though I invited a half dozen kinds of possible 
>> responses. For example (again) what is the "collective identity" of 
>> this list?