Human social life, I suggest, is the magma that erupts and builds up, so to speak, at the fault lines where natural human capacities meet and grind against and over natural human limitations…. This meeting of powers and limitations produces a creative, dynamic tension and energy that generates and fuels the making of human social life and social structures…. It is real human persons living through the tensions of natural existential contradictions who construct patterned social meanings, interactions, institutions, and structures. Christian Smith
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The human mind, with all its complexities and contradictions, is a continual process of building and destroying, of creating and destroying. The process is not a smooth one. It is a constant refinement of our thoughts and actions, of our social relations and achievements. We are constantly moving from the more to the less, from the less to the more.

In this continuous process, we create meaning……. This is why I say that human life is not a stagnant whole but a dynamic [process].

Source: What Is A Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, And The Moral Good From The Person Up

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