For each of 12 Mondays from November through January I am summarizing one of my original ideas.
9. Social Thought is an all encompassing world view. All institutions including language are organized around ideas, concepts, images or metaphors.
The first use of this term was by the University of Chicago for its Committee on Social Thought. The Committee began after the Second World War. Its use of the term Social Thought referred to the core Greek ideas that shape the modern world. My use of the term is broader than the University's Committee.
My use of the term originated from reading Mary Douglas's book How Institutions Think. Prof. Douglas is the mother of the idea. My role was to clearly identify the concept and to promote it in intellectual circles.
I began my national public radio program, Social Thought, that covered 40 stations nationwide and the armed services network, in 1988. The program ran for nine years. The list of the program guests is here.
My relationship to the idea of Social Thought is to have recognized it, named it, exemplified the breadth of it and promoted its vital function in intellectual and academic circles.
To quickly understand Social Thought think of the invisible hand of the market, that is a metaphor that organizes economic thinking. Think of the metaphor for the term 'over' which has a common image when referring to over the bridge, the movie is over, the ideas are over his head and the bank balance is over drawn.
We structure our world on metaphors, ideas, images and concepts. The mechanisms for the human mind and our common behavior is social thought.