Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:39:58 +0100
Hi Maggie
Hettinger wrote:
> I'm going to push back on "Societies". The more I look at the social level, the more I
> think it's not societies that comprise this level, but the particular types of
> behavior--mores and habits, unconscious imitation--that are this level's "substance".
> In describing this I am stuck with
>
> 3. Static Social Value (Socially proscribed interactions and reactions)
>
> The closest one-word description I can find is "Habits". There's got to be something
> better, something that includes the connotation of "imitation", but my thesaurus is no
> help.
I prefer "imitation" to "habits". I think what you are trying to do is deal with the fact that
humans can retain their social patterns outside of the society. That's fair enough but it's a
characteristic of social value it's not the essence of it.
I really liked your example of following in someone else's footsteps when hiking. I think it
illustrates social patterns perfectly. It's almost like the default setting on humans - "in
the absence of other instructions, follow the person next to you".
If you use the word habit it isn't clear that the social patterns come from somewhere outside
the individual. In fact it almost sounds like individuals may have developed their own social
patterns, so it's pretty misleading.
I think I would put it like this:
Social patterns are formed through imitation and retained through habit.
Diana
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