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Which is more important, the individual or the collective?
Individuals can survive without the collective, but the reverse is not true. Thus, the individual is more important.
Sometimes I wonder though, because the era of individualism is mostly behind us. There are very few people left that actually can survive on their own, but saying that they require a collective in order to survive is not demonstrably true either. They may only require the occasional assistance or support of other individuals - why the insistence on it being either an individual OR a collective?
I chafe at the dichotomy offered by the question because without a doubt, collectives are only capable or stronger than lone individuals because of the coordinated efforts and collaboration of individuals in the collective.
In that sense the collective does not exist without the contributions of SOME individuals. And, one can exist simultaneously with SOME individuals who are not a part of it.
Individual. The collective nonsense is just more failed ideas from the Left. Nothing they spout every worked and just toss it onto the ash heap of failed ideas.
I see a collective as being able to achieve greatness despite the abject stupidity of some or even many of the individuals within it. This ability of the collective to transcend is what makes it truly special.
It is not an either/or. Civilization is a balancing act between the group and the individual.
The soldier, the firefighter. The man who stood in front of the column of tanks in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 uprising. Doctors and volunteers who have treated patients during an outbreak of some work, knowing they are likely sacrificing themselves. These people all put the collective over themselves.
The sequoia groves in state and national parks are preserved for all, rather than for the enrichment of someone who wants to cut them down and sell them off. The person who never travels by motor vehicles still helps fund the freeways, the childless person still helps pay for the elementary school. Laws against espionage, against squatting in the town square, against bringing a firearm into the halls of Congress. Funding for the arts. The publicly-built football stadium. These all prioritize us over me.
At the same time, we strive to carve out limits to the extent that individual liberty can be compromised. The classic example is the Bill of Rights, and all its analogous documents around the world.
We can - and will - quibble over how to balance them, but the idea that both are not important is just so much dogmatic nonsense.
Using two opposite extremes, let's take Japan and America. In Japan, the collective is paramount, above all else. In America, it's the exact opposite, the individual is paramount, above all else. But for a healthy functioning society, what do you think is most important?
It's not a matter of which is most important. It's a matter of when one is more important than the other.
Let's take World War II. It was a do-or-die battle of good versus evil. At a time of crisis in civilization, the needs of the individual had to take a back seat to the needs of the many. Otherwise, we would have had chaos.
But in ordinary times, the individual rights should be upheld within the context of broad societal rules. And an individual still has to function with the awareness of how his behavior affects others for good or ill. I mean, no one would argue against traffic laws, punishment for litterers and polluters, or other measures designed to protect public safety and the civic quality of life.
Yet, holding society's interest above the interest of the individual can cause a great deal of moral crisis. Returning to the lessons of World War II, the Japanese and Germans surrendered individuality to the state, only to embark on their lemminglike crusades to conquer the world. Millions died as a result.
Or, let's take the plague of Communism. A noble theory that is hopelessly naive and stupid in practice. Yet somewhere close to 100 million paid the price in the 20th Century putting its absurdities to the test.
In truth, individuals, for the most part, do a pretty good job of balancing their own interests against the greater good. This is why people contribute time and money to charities as a matter of course. Or, if you've ever witnessed the aftermath of a natural disaster, you are immediately struck by how often people simply come out of the woodwork to help others and put a shattered community back on its feet. Yeah, the looters get airtime on the six o'clock news, but the real story is the ones who, almost instinctually, rise up to put the world back together.
"Looters" if they're black. "Finders" if they're white. Another way of saying that individuals are not and are not seen as the same.
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