The Duality of Being [Part II]

II

The Collective

The Collective—on its most basic level—is the combination of the world’s Individuals.

In a level beyond the most basic, the Collective serves to satisfy the needs of the Individual to be part of a group—an innate Human need to not be alone. Whether this need is instinctive or a product of human experimentation is irrelevant: the matter lies within what the Collective is meant to do, the function of the Collective and its role in the life and the Am of the Individual.

Some argue that the vision of the Collective is to better the lives of the Individual. In a way, this is true, as the Individual can only know and do so much for the benefit of his or her own life.

It benefits one to note the we as Humans treat the Collective as one entity rather than what it truly is: a grouping of all Individuals. Rather than seeing each individual Individual in the greater context of the Collective, we see the Collective almost as an Individual itself—with its own thoughts, actions, and beliefs. Humans must understand that there truly can be no such thing as a “Collective Ideal,” a circumstance in which every Individual has the same belief system in place in regards to the benefit of the Individual and the Collective.

Any notion of the Collective Ideal is shattered when one becomes, is, or knows the Exception that Proves the Rule: the One who does not align with anything that comes close to the Collective Ideal. To say that the Collective has one unified Ideal is a tremendous fallacy, for if the Collective had one Ideal, then every Individual would simply be decimated and melded into a figurative Collective Mass. To say that there is a Collective Ideal is to say the the Individual has no standing within the Collective.

This is not only an insult to the Individual and his or her mindset, Living, Doing, and Being; it also presents the Collective in a context that is on the same level of the Individual, undermining the importance of the Individual within him/herself and the role and purpose of the Individual within the Collective.