A SOCIOLOGIST'S PERSPECTIVE

Thank you to Dr. Julie Curwin for a very stimulating contribution (Nov. 27) to the dialogue arising from Dr. Chris Milburn's Nov. 16 opinion piece. She argues with skill and energy for the idea of individual responsibility and free will. A couple of aspects trouble me, however. One is a serious logical flaw in her approach. The other involves the political implications of her stand.

The logical flaw is twofold. On the one hand, she wants to boil down our actions to our personal choices, and, in effect, to them alone. In logic, that mistake is called reductionism — ignoring the many and diverse causes of events. On the other hand, she illogically sets up a false dichotomy. That is, she recognizes only two extreme and opposite sides of the issue: either her side of extreme individualism, or the contrary side, calling it “victimhood culture,” which wants to let people off the hook for anything and everything bad they might do.

It's almost trite to have to say this, but the truth surely lies in the middle ground, where we put together those two interpretations of life. As a well-known social philosopher put it long ago: “Yes, people make history, but not just how they choose to do it.” Or, he could have said: “People make their autobiography…”. Dr. Curwin knows this, of course. As a psychiatrist, she must, in order to help people who are struggling with their circumstances. But why, in the rhetoric of her opinion piece, does she push that recognition to the margins?

And the political consequences of Dr. Curwin's position? Whether it reflects her own political ideology or not, her argument feeds a conservative approach to social policy, downloading a person's fate onto herself or himself, abandoning or minimizing public efforts to develop the best possible circumstances that could allow individuals to exercise positive choices. I am not being snide in suggesting that government could start by a massive increase in health-care investment.

John E. DeRoche, retired sociologist, Brookside