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Is a group of people an inanimate entity to you? Are there only certain types of groups of people that you think are an animate entity?
by FFRefresh 5y ago
Is a group of people an inanimate entity to you? Are there only certain types of groups of people that you think are an animate entity?
- ForHackernews 5y agoIf you want to get really pedantic about it, a company is not a "group of people": a company is a particular legal structure for organising a profit-making enterprise. So yes, it is an inanimate entity. When we say things like "that Lions football team suffered a crushing defeat", we're engaging in metonymy -- referring to the suffering of the members of the team but speaking metaphorically about "the team".
- FFRefresh 5y agoWe'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't think whatever arbitrary legal structure there is around a group of people somehow makes the organization not human. For example, I think it's perfectly normalized to say "that Detroit Lions team suffered a crushing defeat", even though the Detroit Lions are a profit-making enterprise.
- 8note 5y agoI'll go with, there is a group of people involved with a corporation, but it's largely decoupled from the corporation itself. The group of people are the labourers being exploited, and they're separate from the group of owners that the corporation represents.