Regarding Bill Tobin's letter “Societies need to regain focus” (Aug. 6, Page 6), you state that “societies” represent people — as opposed to companies — and that these societies have forgotten their focus — people. You miss the more important question: Why do we need these “societies” now at all?
I do not ask societies for help because they are ineffective tools to help me run or improve my business. Each individual at a society meeting has an agenda — his or her own. This is rightly so because if they had my agenda in mind, they would work for me.
This is the Age of the Individual. The belief that we are part of some vast communal effort for “society” is long dead. Surprising, the belief that a middleman (i.e. a society) will think for me and work for me (Assuming I am one of the people you think a society should work for if I pay some dues?) is still with us and being published.
Advances are made by individuals because thinking is an individual exercise and cannot be otherwise.
You were clearly wrong when you said the alternative was to quit a “society” and then pout. Individuals accomplish.
Keith Luker
President
Randcastle Extrusion Systems Inc.
Cedar Grove, N.J.