We seldomrealize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions arenot actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and imageswhich we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society. Wecopy emotional reactions from our parents, learning from them thatexcrement is supposed to have a disgusting smell and that vomiting issupposed to be an unpleasant sensation. The dread of death is alsolearned from their anxieties about sickness and from their attitudes tofunerals and corpses. Our social environment has this power justbecause we do not exist apart from a society. Society is our extendedmind and body.Yet the very society from which the individual is inseparable is usingits whole irresistible force to persuade the individual that he is indeedseparate! Society as we now know it is therefore playing a game withself-contradictory rules.

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