In this modern age, we are given with definitions of the individual and of the collective. Society has always, since the birth of societies, offered it's own personal definition of individual expressions. These expressions are spirituality, sexuality, gender roles, survival/employment, entertainment, etc. This function of a society is it's definition. Society is tasked with the role of offering commonality to the members of it's population in it's various institutions. These tend to be the most popular expressions, but it begs the question of whether the individuals introduced the expression, or adopted the expression from the State.
Societies have sought to show the exceptionalism of their populaces by offering institutions of an ascended and more evolved status than their contemporaries. But formerly, the society was as much a creation of a small cadre of men that sought to shape their country in the best possible way in favor of the physical, mental, and spiritual betterment of it's lowliest habitant, as it was of the populace that participated in it's maintenance. That a society has become the playground and testing site of the "masters of the universe" of the global elite and the social scientists they convort with and learn from is actually an abomination of the natural law of the strongest surviving.
In the global elite's striving for a Great Work that would unite the Earth under one ruler, they have given access to the common man and woman of the United States tools that are now right at our very finger tips. Tools and resources that were not there for us twenty, thirty, even fifty years ago. Tools like the internet, and resources that only a global economy can provide. Inadvertently and most likely, unintentionally, they have given the ability for the apt to become as highly individualized as one would like.
Thus, we can see that innovation, and the capital gains that one would expect from introducing a new thing to the market only excede the imagined impacts on the cultures, societies and individuals exposed to them. Was the internet introduced and sold to the people as a way to instantly furnish them with information that would be so damning to the global elites? I hardly think so. More that it was introduced as a way to sell non-tangible goods directly to the homes and hands of the consumer, such as music, movies, books, etc. As well, to allow instant communication. The unintended side affect was greater availability of information that is damaging to the state (see: Wikileaks), and the ability of poor peoples to more easily mass and to mobilize (see: Arab Spring 2011).
As was mentioned above, society offers it's own flavor of the basic human institutions, but it does so not in as much a lofty idealic way. Society offers these institutions and the result is a normalcy, and at worst a conformity to a usually unidentified social standard, or norm. If we use the United States, we can see that it offers it's own flavors of institutions, and we will see, by outlining these institutions that they are given to the masses who dare not tread on the lonely path of self-mastery.
I will outline the institutions in the United States and outline the state prescribed expressions of said institutions. I will also say, that none of the following evaluations of state sanctioned expressions come anywhere near where I personally would hope for any of the institutions if I could control them; they are merely the state sanctioned, or put more aptly, the status quo. If one doesn't believe these are the status quo expressions of the following institutions, try telling someone who follows the following sanctioned expressions that you are now going to start to do the opposite of what they are doing and watch their reaction. That will be the reaction of majority living in the collectivism I am speaking.
- Religion- The institution of religion/spirituality the American is given
Judaism/Christianity. For simplicity, I will just say Judeo-Christian.
This religion, being an opiate for the masses, is a religion built on a
guilt complex. I will write more about that later.
- Education- For the institution of education, the United States prescribes something known today as college. It is highly expensive and offers nothing but a piece of paper. It is a sector of the economy advertised to the commoner as a means for acquiring more wealth, a stepping-stone to better job placement, and a place of higher learning. In actuality, though, it offers a form of intellectual complacency and retards the reaching for a intellectual "wholeness" through a process known as "specialization." Once said "piece of paper" (diploma) is acquired, it allows the commoner to become self-satisfied and to stop the pursuit of knowledge on their own.
- Politics- In the United States, the commoner is offered two parties, the Republican, and the Democrat. They are two sides of a corporate controlled coin.
- Gender Roles- For straight men, the prescribed expression of the societal institution of gender expression involves watching sports, talking about sports, becoming a father, being a dummy, and having sex with as many partners as possible. This expression of masculinity is witnessed on any television channel on any prime time television program. For women, the prescribed expression is to pay lip-service to gender equality, to be shallow, concerned primarily with physical expressions of beauty and cleanliness, and, after pursuing the paper tiger of state-sponsored feminism, to either retreat from said feminism or to live out one's life in a very solitary place whilst pursuing love in all of it's many avenues. Women are taught by society to paradoxes from the very start. To be whores, and at the same time, ladies of virtue. To be successful, independent business women, but at the same time, be supporting wives and mothers. To be free from the beauty myth, but at the same time, to always stress about their bodies, hair and looks. Both sexes are expected to see intellectualism and individualism as abhorrent and unattractive characteristics.
- Medicine- For the institution of medicine, the American is taught that once they develop a disease, that the only thing they can do is treat the symptoms, and not to focus on a cure. Again, the institution of medicine is akin to the institution of education; they are both profit driven, and therefore not driven to actually solve society's woes. A solution is a cure, and cures don't make money.
- Economy/Financial System- Related again to the education system, most Americans are expected to work low tech jobs in the three biggest growth sectors in the economy: health care, service sector, and educational/governmental employment. I say related to the educational system because Americans are not taught in public schools how to understand finance, commerce or how the economy works, lest they would be able to see plainly that 1% of American citizens own 95% of the wealth, and demand more. Most employment these days, at least in the private sector, belongs to the mega-rich, multi-national corporations such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's and other such corporations.
- Food Production/Nutritional Availability- This is the institution through which Americans put food in their bodies. American's are conditioned to believe that if it comes in fancy packaging, that it is good for you because it has been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
There, that wasn't that hard. A little long-winded, I know, but I wanted to outline the aforementioned societal institutions to explain that in the age of the internet and the age of global commerce, there is no excuse for the individual to align themselves to the aforementioned "state sanctioned" expressions. The knowledge is at the individual's fingertips.
"Ahh," you say, "but how does all of that coincide with the title of this post?"
The title of this post is "The Rise of the Individual vs. the Decline of the Collective." The individual is someone who has self-defined their own personal expression of the aforementioned socially prescribed expressions of American institutions. An individual may have one or more self-defined expressions of American institutions. For example, you may shirk the socially prescribed political institution in favor of a "third party," but still receive allopathic treatment (socially prescribed medical institution) for an illness. You may be a man who expresses himself in a more traditional way by going out hunting regularly, or participates in sports as opposed to watching them from a chair in your living room, while at the same time, eat a steady diet of food created using artificial ingredients and flavors (socially prescribed nutritional institution) found on the grocery store aisle.
The rise of the individual equates to a growing awareness facilitated by the internet. I say the internet, because the internet is a collective conscious. The internet also facilitates global commerce which again, facilitates personal expression and sovereignty. Today, you could grow up in Kansas City, MO and by the time you were 18, could be a self-taught master of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, an amateur chemist, and raise Tibetan alpaca for wool. You could have done that in the 80's, but the internet, and global commerce have facilitated the ease through which you had bought your jiu-jitsu DVDs, your chemistry set and You Tube chemistry lectures, and your baby Tibetan alpacas.
The individual in the 21st Century has the potential of becoming nothing less than a fully actualized human being pursuing any and all intellectual and physical pursuits in the history of the world. The only danger he or she would have would be a curtailment of his or her freedom and access to pure, uncensored information and goods from the internet.
Where is the collective at? Physically, the collective of the United States is in the toilet, waiting to be flushed. I mean that they are eating artificial food, and watching sports and television, and they're developing cancers and diseases that, by prescribing to the institutional expression of medicine, will not be taught the true source of their diseases. They will instead be forced to shift a higher and higher percent of their income at a lowly service sector job to an equally worthless medical field. The collective will be of course placated by the promise of better jobs by the two party system, television shows will show the low income majority of the United States medical breakthroughs that they will never afford to enjoy, and will be given more and less expensive technology to distract themselves.
In short, they will be killed off slowly by the state sanctioned expressions of institutions they require.
So, I beg the question to the reader, are you an individual, a sovereign human? Or are you member of the herd mentality?
