A group’s shared ”we” is an illusion with no underlying organism

Evidence

Laing argues that any group in which all members experience the group as a ‘‘we’’ ‘‘is not a social object out there in space. It is the quite extraordinary being formed by each person’s synthesis of the same multiplicity [of identifications] into ‘‘We,’’ and each person’s synthesis of the multiplicity of syntheses. Looked at from the outside, the group comes into view as a social object, lending, by its appearance … credence to the organismic illusion. This is a mirage; as one approaches closer there is no organism anywhere’’ (86). — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 688

Categorization

• XREF: Laing’s ‘mirage we’ anticipates Anderson’s imagined communities and could productively be read against Benedict Anderson — worth pulling into my collectivity/identity notes. — connects to: We-subject feeling is a solipsistic illusion with no real social being
• DEFINE: A crisp early articulation of the social-constructionist claim that groups are aggregations of individual identifications, not real entities — a precursor concept to later ‘formation of a we’ critiques.

Broader Connections

• We-subject feeling is a solipsistic illusion with no real social being #corroborates (0.95)