Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Sociology - Individual, Groups, Society, grade: 80, The Open University, course: DD308, language: English, abstract: The conception of the thin individual is one that there is no real inner self waiting to unfold, but rather a malleable dumb creature. According to the thin conception of the individual, what is taken as innate human attributes, such as to think, act, and so on, are just cultural and historical variables. As Colin Wilson suggests, Descartes should have followed his assertion ‘I think therefore I am’ with the question ‘Yes but who am I’? Not the social constructed person or even the socio-technical person. The inner world reality of consciousness, the will to love, fight, have sexual relations etc. As Erich Fromm claims, many sociologists are in essence apologists for and not critics of the existing social system.