Who Is ‘The System’? Reification Explained (And How It Manipulates You)

I immediately thought of the Nuremburg trials and how "soldiers just following orders" was discussed at great length where duty ended and personal choice set in.

Oh, i know this one! My favorite example is probably the mystical and forever elusive ‘algorithm’ :)

Thanks I feel more educated because of you

School spirit is dying? Yeah spirits tend to do that

I had never heard of this word but its a concise summation of my thoughts on like... Is this not just what all of society is built on? Like, foundationally? Like, systemically? Like, to a criminal degree from companies, governments, corporations, policies, in some instances even laws and largely capitalism in general etc, falling back on a dissassociational lack of personal accountability, responsibility and discretion to erase agency, identity (or identification) and dislodge logic and efficacy to save face (or a few dollars) by "anti-anthropomorphising" some very clear, concise, often delibarate and worst case scenario actively malicious choices, by people in power who can obfuscate certain choices or business practices or what-have-you by using this proverbial rug-pull from under the foundations of common sense to derail us further into becoming mindless zombies who dont even know what to fight coz weve been gaslit as to what the actual problems are or who perpetrates them? Like this is clearly a delibarate construct of how our world works?

Something something invisible hand of the market

Inverse of it is also dangerous. People who speak of "families", "nations", "congregations" or any other collective noun of humans can easily exploit such to strip away human liberties and welfare for some abstract unseen entity. It's vital to remember that everything we do is done in pursuit of individual breathing, dreaming, living humans and all policies should seek to answer: "How do I empower this human given their circumstances without hurting others?" rather than "how do I use this human to empower the faith/nation-state/family."

"The fossile fuel industry is responsible for climate change." This doesn't actually say what's happening. ExxonMobil discovered in 70's that global warming was starting. They then cut 90% of their research on the topic, and funded misinformation campaigns through organizations like the New York Times. Claiming that the research data about climate change is too uncertain to make any policy changes. Such as the article "Unsettled Science", or the ad "Future of Energy". One of the most common examples I see.

Took a bunch of random theology courses while I was mucking about in my undergrad and it also comes up there

Thank you, now i can argue back with people when they say "the market decides" i can tell them that a market is not a person, an employer is a person

Oh, like how Nvidia threw everything AI Open and then raised prices "because the market demanded it." ughhh

Well, thanks for that. I never heard that term before.

Preach brother

As someone who works in public science education I really appreciate your content 🫶

The issue is in many cases things do happen specifically because systems (protocols traditions loyalties habits) can exert influence beyond any individual within it can easily stop alone. However reification often reinforces this when justifying, for the good of "the company" "the market" "the nation" "the family values", as opposed to the good of individual people.

I mostly agree. That being said, the concept (of a perfect) market supposes such a large number of people that no single individual can bend it to its will. When all actors act and react to all other actors, that’s the idea of a “market” deciding. In that case, talking about the market does not hide the agency of people. That doesn’t mean that your concept of reification doesn’t apply. As you probably know, there’s hidden trap in : not all markets aten”perfect”, in many of them there are large actors with the wherewithal to alter the results, and manipulate it. For example, a big investor selling its assets at once lowers the price for everyone. (Not to mention the effect of monopolies and the like). And of course, there are also incentives and constrains imposed by governments at their different levels, that might alter the way the market behaves.

Didn't know this had a name, this is a technique I actually have to employ at my retail job. Blaming state law and company policy so that people don't get mad at me for something I have no control over

I'll never forget when my apartment community leasing office agent told me my rent would be increasing $200 because of the market rates, I wish I had this vocabulary at the time to fully understand what was happening.

Ray or Ree, but either way it's 5 syllables and you must say the "if" as a separate syllable! Like qualification or fortification or any other such word, it's based on an -ify verb, to reify. Rhymes with deify / deification.

This is very helpful to have a term to label the behaviour. I was thinking about all the instances I’ve seen where people have surrendered their power and responsibilities by saying things like “the law has allowed x to get away with y” (and inferring that we the people have no power to change that and that’s the way it has been and will always be) - as if laws aren’t human constructs that get changed constantly.