Geertz in conversation with Derrida

Derrida's quote : "The center is at the center of totality, and yet since the center does not belong to the totality, the totality has at its center elsewhwere..." (pg.320)

I wonder what Geertz would perceive of this quote? Thinking, I conclude that Geertz would agree that individuals start at a certain point with their thoughts. As individuals come to understand what their thoughts are, they either act in accordance to their thoughts, or act with full force against their thoughts. Their deviation from their thoughts, pushes them to create a whole new center, from which again their actions will be based of. However, this center is different form the previous center, as it is surrounded with new attitudes, and emotions. With this we introduce that each reaction will contribute to a new set of action, and the chain effect will continue until we no longer are who we used to be. My belief is that Geertz would be extremely interested in applying thick description to determine how humans create this mindset shift, and how much do we actually differ from our "original selves".

We can even add in Merton, to this conversation. In Merton's case he would agree with Geertz, suggesting that his latent and manifest functions are a strong basis to understand if individuals intend for this change to happen, or if social action is a phenomenon that works independently.

I think this is an interesting perspective on Geertz's thoughts of Merton's center. An individual's thoughts help to create a center as thoughts are fluid and a person's creativity knows no bounds. However, the problem is that there will always be a larger social structure or center within society that helps to guide a person's thoughts and possibly restricting it's 'play' in some way. For example, for an isolated individual that has never seen or heard of a computer will not be able to create a system of thought that relates to advanced machinery for a person's thoughts is arguably mostly related to what one knows and experienced in the past. The process of creating a new center is definitely not impossible, but very rare and unlikely.