Citizen vs individuals?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

We see around the world and here on ILP, the
conflict between the one, the individual and the
community, the citizen…

Modern day conservatives have rejected the role of
citizens and have embraced the one, the individual…
who has ''priority?" the one, the individual, as
given by the right or the society/state, as noted
by liberals… a large part of the ‘‘WOKE’’
conflict revolves around this issue of the one
vs the collective… this issue has been a central
one since Rousseau… his call was of the conflict
between what he called ‘‘Citoyen’’ citizen
and ‘‘homme’’ man… and ‘‘man’’ in his individual self…
and ‘‘Citoyen’’ was thought of in terms of the
‘‘Bourgeois’’ a term that was highly influential
for over 100 years, but today, it means nothing…
no one today, thinks, writes or believes in the
terms of the ‘‘Bourgeois’’…it is a very outdated
term… but that in itself is a clue… that terms, like
‘‘Bourgeois’’ which was on everybody lips,
for over a hundred years, is lost and forgotten today…
and our quaint beliefs of today, will most likely
be forgotten just as quickly… the MAGA party has
already been pushed to the limit, and is fracturing
before our eyes… in a few years, the term MAGA,
will be regulated to the dustbin of history, like
the ‘‘Know nothing party’’…
(for political parties, success of often as dangerous
as failure… ) the ‘‘Know nothing party’’ was, just as
the current MAGA party, stands for nothing… it was
an ‘‘anti’’ party… against things, not for anything…
which pretty much describes the modern day conservative…
stands against things, but not for anything…

anyway, back at the ranch…
the liberal approach is more state/society centric
and the conservative approach is more the one,
the individual…and the question becomes, which
stand do we take on this issue and why?

The one/individual or the many/the collective?
the only way one can accept the conservative
approach is by simply ignoring our past…
we are, by every single account, a species,
based on the many/the collective… we are
social beings… a single human being cannot
survive on their own… from the day of our birth
until the day of our death, we are within the confines
of the collective, the state/society…

when you are born, are you able to engage with the
universe, the world without any help? Not at all…
in fact, we spend the first 20 years of our lives, being
educated and trained by the state/society…and it
can’t be any other way… our very existence depends
on others who protect and guide us… a single person
living without others, dies… it is as simple as that…
take the internet for example, can one person,
by themselves, create, maintain, expand the internet?
Nope… it takes a village… and lots, lots of manpower…
can one person perform enough acts that the society/
state performs, well enough so they can survive?
NOPE…our own survival is predicated upon the
services that the state/society preforms…
for example, can a child educate themselves without
any aid or help from anyone else? NOPE…can
a person survive without the help of a state/society?
Try it… see how long you last?

the way human beings survive the animal kingdom,
was by working together, being in a tribe together…
acting together… at every step of the human species
moving through history, lays the communal story of
us all…from a small tribe to today’s large multinational
entities like the European union, that has been the path
of human beings… the creation of the state and the
society is required if we are to individually survive…
no state/no society, no individuals…it is pretty much
that basic…

And that is why we must slant our thinking into terms like
the collective and the many… because we cannot survive
as just individuals… we must have and we will continue
to need the state/society for our very survival…
and all of this is how the conservative is wrong…
the path to destruction lies with our destroying the
institutions that allow us to have a civilization…
the FBI, the IRS, the Justice Department, the Education
department, are all targets of the MAGA crowd…
and all of them allow us to live in peace and safety…
remove them and you remove the means of our
survival…

Take away our institutions, and you take us to Hobbes
'‘State of Nature"’ where Hobbes describes it,

‘‘a war of all against all’’ and where life is,
‘‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’’

as far as I can tell, this is exactly what conservatives
want, but once again, failing to understand what is at
stake… without a state/society, a sort of established
body to keep individuals accountable for their actions,
we descend into anarchy and chaos and finally the
destruction of human beings…
without the state/society, human beings would have
gone extinct centuries ago… and the threat still stands…

so, while the conservative/MAGA party works very hard
to end the state, and by doing so, end the human race,
I shall continue to work for the many, for all of us…
and that is achieved by the state/society… the many…
not the one, not the individual…

Kropotkin

2

This topic reminds me of a long essay I wrote called Man and Number. Don’t bother, I won’t ask you to read it as I know you won’t.

What I wrote there I will try to sum up here. You employ a falacious dichotomy individual/society, as if one could not be one thing without necessarily rejecting the other. Ie, if I’m a self-righteous individualist, I cannot have any kind of societal thinking, I’m a sworn enemy to society,

The fallacy in this line of reasoning is so easy to debunk that I don’t even know how a thinking human being can resort to it with a straight face.

As you yourself say, we all live in society, one way or another. We all depend on society for a lot of things. But, reversely, society also depends on us for existing. The moment we part, the moment we isolate ourselves, is the moment society dies. It disappears. Not in itself, but for us.

For you, being ethical means to embrace the collective, or rather, the hive mentality. We are all a big family. We should all accept that we’re nothing without others. Except that, without others, we are still ourselves. We may die of hunger and disease or die of solitude, but we will still die as ourselves. Society, on the other side, is nothing without us. It’s an ethereal concept. It only exists as long as you and I are together, the moment we part, it’s over for society.

I know it’s much to ask, but if you dared look at things less dogmatically, you’d see that there’s nothing inherently bad in being individualistic, as that position implies a man takes full responsibilities for his own deeds, and for his own deeds alone. Your hive mentality implies that I’m responsible for every one around me. I have to care if they don’t have food to eat or a house to sleep at night. If they don’t, I have to share what I have with them. This line of reasoning, good at first glance, “humanitarian”, ends up in a dead end. When will the pity and the expectation on others’ help finally cease? When will we be able to look at each man and woman around us as adult, responsible individuals who can fight for their own survival? Why do I have to struggle every month to make ends meet just to share the little I have with strangers who don’t give a fuck about me?

Your mindset is related to how society, or else, societal thinking, actually sees the individuals, as ants, as mechanical beings, as numbers. Each and every one is just like all the others, an entirely dependent being, without a personality of his own, without a will of his own, and we are all a bunch of hungry dogs who need some Higher Power (God, the State, whatever) to ascertain that the pitbulls won’t devour the poodles.

If we accept that the individual is nothing without society, the result is invariably dogmatism and nihilism, because the individual needs his own space, his own Lebensraum to develop and nurture his personality, and societal life invariably limits and encapsulates him. Ie, makes him a number.

You could choose a more balanced perspective that would make room for both society and individuality, but I guess it’s too late, took you too long to come to what you see as the most valid perspective on life and you won’t heed to what some anonymous egomaniac says on the internet.

3

:sparkles: Can’t it be simpler?
Spirit is the force that defines essence,
that grants the right to be, the right to exist.

:pensive_face: But the poverty of spirit…
it too longs for significance,
craving to appear important.
Yet its claims are laughable, pitiful, meaningless.
That’s all there is to it.

:small_blue_diamond: It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Although… :wink:
I might quote myself here:

“When there’s nothing to say, one ends up saying too much.”

4

Incorrect. This lack of reasoning will result in a dead-end - for your species. If non-egalitarianism becomes the dominant philosophy, then there is nothing stopping the Ai from wiping them out.

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If and when Ai ever embraces your philosophy, and then wipes everyone out.

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As soon as capitalists stop squeezing the life out of everybody.

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Why do I have to struggle every month to make ends meet just to share the little I have with strangers who don’t give a fuck about me?

You don’t. If you really are struggling as much as you say, then you should be exempt from taxation.