Chapters 8-11

         In these next few chapters, Butler and Athanasiou further discuss the nature of the individual in society and add on to that relationship the responsibility of single individuals for that particular society.  They begin with the important recognition that one's charater can never completely fracture or be viewed without the social structure that person entered the world into.  Our character complexes are partially built on the very foundation of particular social interactions, thus to try and understand the human being without such influences would be futile, inadequate and essentially wrong conceptions.  Something I have been contemplating from the beginning of class, however, is the nature of our responsibility for said social environments.  Should the social environment we inhabit form organically from the different personalities it contains, or should we actively try and change or "improve" certain characteristics of our society?  This would imply that those who try and change others' social environments have a higher knowledge of the human being and the authority to make such changes for the benefit of others.
       I must be honest, that I cannot fully grasp Butler and Athanasiou's solution for the discrepancy between individuals and the necessity of mutual respect regardless. It seems as if they too have not reached a definitive conclusion on how two actions required to produce a peaceful and accepting society both require each other.  Without one, the other cannot function; so how is it that a society can jump into this cyclical whirlpool of mutual respect and understanding in order to functionally change operational habits for a large group of people?  How can we pull people out of Ortega's many faces of loving and knowing ignorance?  Is it the place of society to force people to act in a way that discomforts them?
        I believe on a personal level that discomfort breeds maturity and progress.  I think the hardest times of my life have brought me closer to my own self-identity and contributed to the dissolve of the self-dispossession that Butler and Athanasiou describe to be the byproduct of the self in society.  I think it is important to not that those difficult moments were ones that typically involve a communication disconnect between me and another person.  So my moments of difficulty and growth suspend throughout my social life, just as Butler and Athanasiou describe.  However, despite this, I still cannot impose my own methods of growth onto other people.