But a whole society can’t change its mind the way a biological creature can. It might behave as if it were a social organism, but it doesn’t have a brain; it exists only as a web of symbolic interactions among its members. It’s those individuals who have to do the changing, and rarely can many minds change at once because telepathy doesn’t exist. We inhabit imaginary worlds we share with others, but we come to those worlds privately, each with our own unique constellation of information, ideas, and beliefs. And if some members of a society alter their perceptions and beliefs and others don’t,
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