Sociologists, psychologists, and biologists all say that the human animal is a collective or social one.
To what extent are human beings collective and social?
In a world where noone is motivated to do anything for each other without money just how collective and social are human beings?
If people cannot be motivated to do anything for each other without the incentive of money, personal gain, or payment how can we still define human beings as having a social or collective mentality as a specie?
Money only has value in relation to other people and in relation to a group/society. So you could say that we are social animals because our self interested actions urge us to amass powers which can only be expressed through interacting socially.
If you were not a social animal, would you be on the internet posting your thoughts on this website? Maybe your actions really are completely selfish and individual, which I would argue is actually impossible psychologically but we can set that aside for the moment, but even if they are, you are still expressing this selfish drive in a social manner. Interacting collectively. And if our most selfish and individual desires naturally seek expression and outlet through social means, its pretty hard to say we arent social animals.
When I think of genuine social and collective interaction I think of a herd of wildebeests on the African plain in a nature documentary.
In a herd of wilderbeests every member works together with other members as a cohesive singular unit together where every member’s interest works for the greater interest of the collective herd where all members help each other freely.
No single individual wilderbeest let’s their own individual interest part ways away from the collective interests of the herd nor do they let their individual interests obstruct the interests of the collective herd either.
To me such behaviors are genuine forms of social and collective cohesion amongst social interaction.
Human beings however do not typically help each other out freely without some form of personal incentive, payment, profit, or compensation to be paid.
Even more a great number of human individuals have no problem furthering their own interests at the expense of collective interests.
It is also clear that the divisive nature of labor, social class, status, and occupation divides human beings against each other to such a degree that members within society do not work together as a single cohesive unit.
Perhaps biologists, sociologists, and psychologists may want to re-examine of whether human beings are social and collective or not for human beings I do not believe accurately fit those definitions.
