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I am, by nature, inflammatory, Don. I should have been a journalist!
As you know, I think organizations and social structures are now
melting. The heat I think comes from individualism, so, for whatever it
is worth, I'd guess you and Professor Granovetter are on the right
track.
I think that is occurring because the social costs of not being in
accord with groups are going down. The Internet is a big part of that
but so is globalization if that is a category of any meaning. Other
factors are group and network proliferation and urban density.
As organizations melt, you are finding a relationship where innovation
is the inverse of identity. The stronger the identity imposed on
people, the less they break rules. The less the identity, the more they
change. This is not only innovation in the patent-pending sense, it is
the wearing of tattoos, etc. It is lifestyle choices--individualism.
Liberty is, at some level, anti-social. We have so many parameters by
which we live that allows for "heat" to develop in our organizations.
Classic responses are nationalistic, fundamentalist, etc. In short,
strong identity. In the past, identity tended to win through power. In
an age of globalization where states are rapidly melting (Saskia
Sassen's work), this may be changing definitively.
We will only know as we study how the networks change dynamically.
Ryan
-----Original Message-----
From: Social Networks Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Don Steiny
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Networks and conformity
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Ryan,
I made my point poorly. I think this would be better: There is
no one
thing that is Social Network Analysis, leaving it wide open for straw
man arguments. Many of us are interested in philosophy, ethnography,
psychology and the theory underpinning our ideas of what is real. I
have been reading Hayek, Isaiah Berlin (at Mark Granovetter's
suggestion), Saint Simon, Marx and others trying to understand the
history and arguments for atomic rational individualism. I see networks
as an alternative description of individualism that fits the data
better. For instance, Ivan Chase's work on hierarchies provides
empirical reasons to reject atomic rational individualism as a possible
explanation of hierarchies. I consider this all to be subsumed under my
view of Social Network Analysis. The implications go far beyond
classification.
-Don
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