The Individual and the Collective

            Ever since man has existed, the world has been rocked by an intellectual battle that has molded the very foundations of modern-day principles. A battle still fought even up to today, both in pen and in sword. Wars were ignited in the past, intellectual development was left stagnant for decades, and people were mandated to participate in mass genocide. And despite the many contradictions, both sides still believe they bested the other; although only one is truly on the path to prosperity. It is the battle between the person and the mob; between freedom and social slavery; between the individual and the collective.

In the dark ages, people were condemned for introducing new ideas considered absurd at that time. Many great minds, such as Galileo Galilee, were actually imprisoned for such an atypical proposition. In many cases, people were hanged in front of a menacingly cheerful mob. There was no room for creativity and originality. The individual had no room for creativity and originality. For it was what the mob wanted. The mob wanted these great men they consider as witches and abominations burned at the stake; the mob in their mindless collective ignorance with the arrogant attempt to cleanse the world from the unusual and the unaccepted. But the brain could never be subjected to another brain without compromising the rights of the former. Fear, threats, and force are the key ingredients in destroying the ingenuity of the human mind. And a mob that legally holds the rights to want a person dead just because of pure numbers, possesses all of the three ingredients.

Every collectivist state that has promoted the ideology which mandates its people to partake in common action for the sake of what they call the common good has always embarked on a miserable journey down a steep hill towards totalitarianism. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and North Korea are but examples of countries that used a perverted sense of the common good. In the uprising of Nazi Germany, many Jews were slaughtered in the name of a misguided and arrogant lowlife. In the “great” Soviet Russia, famine caused the death of about 350,000 to 400,000 human beings under the due negligence of its collectivist government. And most recently, in remote North Korea, people are being brainwashed into thinking that their country is the supreme and invulnerable superpower of the world. These three countries have the common ironic propaganda that encourages, sometimes mandates its people to act as one in common slavery without even knowing it, and “educates” them that all the holocaustic results of their ignorance are just products of other issues.

 A collectivist society suggests that no man can justify his existence if he does not act as an object of slavery to everybody; a system that only works with insignificant creatures such as ants, whose workers’ lives are dedicated to serve a semi-sapient queen. The only way for a sapient brain to function properly, is to set it free. To let it understand independence and integrity. To let it think for itself. To let it interact with other minds in voluntary consensus. Not to bind it in chains with other minds. Not to inflict coercion. Not to let it feel a guilt that it does not deserve. You are an individual and you must hold to your own judgment in informed awareness and justify your existence by your own achievement.

This article was originally my sample work that I sent to The Crusader Publication (Our university's official paper) almost a year ago as part of a requirement to be hired as one of their writers. Simply put, I didn't get the job. But it's fine.