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No, we do not need a "sociology of collectives". Your essay sounds like a grant application to somehow prove your relevance to Christian thought. Pompous pontifications from over-educated moron professors in the social sciences, which are NOT really sciences, as the real Scientific Method has no relevance, all of their work is a compilation of similarly educated "propaganda peddlers". As it is all about who can give the most persuasive argument or tickle ears, like Paul warns us against.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 New American Standard Bible

3 For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

God created us all as individuals designed by Him for particularly purposes, tribal theory has NO place, but distracted us from that sacred Biblical Truth, that we ALL were created equal in His image. With no regard for race, creed, or geographic location of ourselves or forebears.

Richard Feynman had a great saying, that readers should heed, regarding any social scientist showing off his credentials and urging us to take his opinions more seriously that the word of God.

Richard Feynman: Never Confuse Education with Intelligence, you may have a PhD and still be an idiot.

This is particularly true of political scientists, who are about as trustworthy as Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist.

And your word salad, dropping all the "names" in the social "sciences" that you think agree with you, just shows a lot of morally stupid ungodly people agree with one another.

Sincerely,

Gene

Eugene F Douglass, MS, MDiv, PhD

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I don't think I agree with Mabry, but if that's the best refutation you can come up with I might need to take a second look.

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Well, that is all I can do here in this forum. Most of those "socalled" wise men he relies upon for his missive are not doctrinally solid. Many are NOT Christians either. I highly recommend this book, the author addresses the problem in the social sciences particularly, as it is all subjective, with no solid biblical moral standards. Some people may compose "wise" prose, but if their family and personal lives are depraved or full of families being destroyed, even people dying. Satan is the author of confusion.

Read this book for a great perspective on elevated prose, opining on sociological issues....

https://bit.ly/intellectpj

And of course this one:

https://amzn.to/3TOZgzw

Gene

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If Mabry is so obviously wrong, it should be a trivial exercise to come up with something better than "this idea is wrong because there are ungodly people who believe it."

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No one is more provincial than a WEIRD Euro-American who naively assumes that every human on the planet shares his/her universalist, altruist view of all humanity.

https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-weirdest-people-in-the-5a2

"Intensive kinship creates a strong in-group/out-group distinction (there’s kin and there’s not-kin): people from societies with strong kinship bonds, for instance, are dramatically more willing to lie for a friend on the witness stand. WEIRD people are almost never willing to do that, and would be horrified to even be asked. Similarly, in societies with intensive kinship norms, you’d be considered immoral and irresponsible if you didn’t use a position of power and influence to benefit your family or tribe; WEIRD people call that nepotism or corruption and think it’s wrong."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10861049/

"We find that cohabitation of several generations within the historical family and power of older generations over the younger are detrimental for out-group trust today."

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Which kind of society succeeds in the long term?

Do you recognize the universal validity of the Golden Rule? If so, then are you accepting of someone lying about you on the witness stand?

I agree that it is naive to think that the Euro-American approach is common elsewhere, and we should be prepared to assert the superiority of our culture. I assume that is what you are getting at, also.

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This brings up a significant issue, though. What if you have a society made up of two communities. Community 1 holds an implicit belief that Truth is One, call it a "The Truth" belief. Community 2 holds an implicit belief that Truth is Perspectivist, call it a "Our Truth" belief. Sharing a society means that these two communities share a justice system.

So two people witness a crime, one from each community. Witness 1 states what he saw in terms of The Truth. Witness 2 gives a different story that absolves fellow members of Community 2 from any culpability, because Our Truth is that We are not guilty. Community 1 accuses Witness 2 of perjury. Community 2 accuses Community 1 of attacking them by trying to get their members thrown in jail.

Both are speaking through their implicit truth paradigms. Both sides see themselves as the wronged party. Community 1 feels wronged because Witness 2 committed perjury. Community 2 feels wronged because Witness 1 is trying to get their members put in jail.

Can these two communities live together? Is there any way to bring them both to a consensus that doesn't involve one using the force of the legal system against the other?

I think the key here is that your community might recognize the Golden Rule as universally valid, but how do you deal with someone who rejects it, and says that the highest ethical law is My Side Wrong or Right? Like it or not, this is a key issue we're going to have to deal with in a modern, pluralist, multicultural democracy where these kinds of rules are subject to voting by groups who may hold diametrically opposed basic moral beliefs from yours.

I don't think that there's any going back to a monocultural, Christian society. We need to start figuring out, and quickly, how to cope with groups of people in our society whose basic ethical principles are tribalism and have no problem with things like lying under oath, committing crimes against out-groups, election fraud, and naked political corruption.

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