Escaping the Tyranny of the Collective

Evolving to the Next Level (DN 4.9)

It is inconceivable that you would ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log together.
—Michael Tomasello

No man is an island.
—John Donne

We humans are, in the words of Duke University professor Michael Tomasello, an ”ultra-social” species. We are capable of interacting with a “shared intentionality” that is completely beyond even our closest genetic relatives.

Our toddlers fare just about as well as adult chimpanzees on a variety of cognitive and physical tests. But when it comes to tests involving cooperative goals, pro-social behavior, and a sense of fairness, even our youngest children far outperform the smartest chimps.

Needless to say, there are other cooperative species. Bees and ants spring to mind right away, and just like them, there are biological imperatives driving us to be social and cooperative. We are, to a significant degree, wired to be social.

And yet, unlike bees and ants, we can choose not to be. Any person can run off into the woods anytime he likes and become a hermit. And some do. Each of us is a separate individual with a sense of self-ownership, a unique personality, and personal control over his or her actions and choices.

Our nature drives us to be together, but we also choose to be. We are simultaneously the most individualistic and the most social species on the planet.

Using this unique combination—and fueled by recursive language, an innate sense of fairness, and the tendency to develop and observe shared rule sets—we have risen to the height of dominance on this planet. Cooperation is our superpower.

Unfortunately, our drive and desire to be social also produces a variety of toxic byproducts. Stifling conformity. Dangerous compliance. The tyranny of the majority. Taken to its extreme, our ultra-social nature actually becomes dangerous, posing a grave threat to individuals and the societies in which they live…

The Dark Side

We want to live and work together. Life is better when we do, and it is extremely hard—and usually quite short—if we do not. And so we do.

Living together creates standards of behavior. Like many organic phenomena, behavioral traits will tend to follow normal distributions: lots of people clustered around an average and a much smaller number of outliers.

What happens next is well-known. From our earliest years, the average frowns upon the outliers. Conformity is enforced. The unique and different are “weird.” The same applies to outlier physical traits and mental aptitudes. The scythes that cut the tallest flowers are sharpened young.

The urge to conform leads some to deny obvious truths right before their eyes. The urge to follow the rules leads others to follow authority blindly, even when it takes them to terrible places. Conformity and compliance are cooperation’s dark shadows.

Human personality runs the gamut, but we can roughly be divided into two categories: those whose survival strategy begins with the premise that they must rely upon themselves and their own judgment, and those whose starting point is to do what the group is doing and follow its leaders. Call them individualists and collectivists for shorthand.

Yet the individualists can only get so far. We are a community-based species, and as such, the collectivist view naturally tends to win out. And the more that collectivist views reinforce each other, the more toxic everything becomes…

Man is not an island becomes
THE INDIVIDUAL HAS NO IDENTITY OUTSIDE THE GROUP.

We want and need to be with others becomes
THE INDIVIDUAL MUST SUBORDINATE HIS RIGHTS TO THE GROUP

Life is harder when one is alone becomes
YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE.

We are social by nature becomes
ALL DECISIONS MUST BE COLLECTIVE DECISIONS.

The apotheosis of this outlook is, of course, found in the totalitarian dystopias that haunt our history, our nightmares, and our darkest stories. We know it’s bad, and yet the collectivist urge has us constantly slouching in that direction. Why?

Because we are a social species. Because it’s all we’ve ever known.

Because we have to find ways to live together, dontcha know.

And so we march on, generation after generation… Cramming square pegs into round holes. Bullying or “educating” the uniqueness out of children. Subsuming the individual into the blob, and sacrificing his rights on the altar of the “common good.”

The Common Good Becomes Our Common Horror

Biological imperatives. Survival strategies. The desire to be kind. The 'common good.'

It all sounds so nice. And it can all so easily go so terribly wrong:

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity.
—Giovanni Gentile

There is no…contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of the individual person and the interests of the collective… . There should be no such contrast, because collectivism, socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective.
—Joseph Stalin

Society, as a real whole, is the normal order, and the mass as an aggregate of isolated units is the fiction
—John Dewey

Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.
—Harvey Ruvin

We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.
—Hillary Clinton

To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.
—Joseph Goebbels

If the nineteenth century was the century of individualism (Liberalism always signifying individualism) it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism, and hence the century of the State.
—Benito Mussolini

Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
—Karl Marx

It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own pride is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole…that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and the will of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of interests of the individual. … By this we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men.
—Adolf Hitler

Fascist philosopher Mario Palmieri put it this way: “It is not the individual who confers a meaning upon society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual.…The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at once, and this need of rising the State to its rightful position.”

Barack Obama was more blunt: “Just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right.”

To the collectivist, the individual isn’t actualized as a human being without the collective. He isn’t free until he submits to have the limits of his freedom determined by the collective.

His will must be subordinated to the “common good.” He is defined and subsumed by the collective. He isn’t a separate entity at all—he is just a cell of a larger body.

And yet, since the collective cannot think, choose, or act, notions like “the common good” and “the will of the collective” are forever and always determined by some small group of people in power. Mark that well.

To the extent that a hardcore collectivist acknowledges individual aspirations, they are acknowledged as an irritant, or worse. Any individual whose hopes and dreams conflict with the needs of the collective must be overborne. And do you notice how the rulers alone are somehow, magically, able to determine a single set of needs for millions of people?

The belief persists, throughout nearly all human societies, that the only way to live is to impose a single system and way of life on everyone living in a given area. Because we all have to “find a way to live together.”

What starts as our superpower ends as our worst nightmare.

Time to Evolve

Yes, we are wired, and choose, to be social. Yes, cooperation is a great strength. Yes, community is necessary. And yes, togetherness is wonderful.

All of these things are absolutely true. And yet the tragic byproducts of this reality are so utterly poisonous that somehow, some way, we must move beyond them.

I am not talking about playing on the margins, or ‘reforming’ some political system. I am talking about evolution.

If hereditary authority (monarchy) was HumanGovernance 1.0, and majority authority (democracy) was 2.0, it is time to evolve to 3.0—the authority of each person over him or herself. It is time for genuine consent to replace the tawdry fiction of the tacit “social contract.” It is time to end the tyranny of the group over the individual.

We must find a way to enjoy the benefits of community while avoiding the horrors of collectivism…or even just the foibles of democracy. We may not be able to take everyone with us, and that is fine.

Indeed—that is part of the point: everyone must find their own way, by their own lights, and with their own consent. But those of us who can evolve should evolve.

And it begins (as we will discuss in our next installment) with the simple decision to

Stop caring what other people think.

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Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.10 | 3.11 | 3.12 | 3.13 || Who: 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.XX | 4.XY | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.9