On Individuality
This post is inspired by the following quote from Airwalker:
“The insanity of the collective egoistic mind, amplified by science and technology, is rapidly taking our species to the brink of disaster. Evolve or die: that is our only choice now.”
-Eckhart Tolle
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It is strange to me that Ayn Rand espoused "Individuality" as a virtue and then turned around and cast dispersion on collectivism.
Did she not recognize that "Individuality" as symbol is necessary to a collective view of humanity?
It is necessary metaphysically: a society cannot be properly called a "collective" if it is not a "collective" of something.
It is necessary culturally: by applying the "Individual" label to a man, his peculiarity is displaced. He is simply a physical instance of an abstract prototype.
In fact, it is precisely the underlying concept of fundamental, eternal self that has enabled the most monstrous examples of collectivized thinking throughout history. Communism/Socialism could not be ideologically justified without the concept of a single worker's dignity. Christianity without the concept of "a soul to be saved" would be empty. The Fascist state would not thrive without each individual being defined in terms of the state.
But it is precisely these archetypes which give cultural systems the leverage they need to deal with the individual as cog, slave, worker bee, sacrificial goat.
For the "soul" of a Christian is not a flat identifier or a personal vessel to be filled with content at the whim of the owner. The "soul" has definite properties - it is capable of sin, it is free, etc. These properties allow the church organism to act strongly on the body of the soul.
The "worker" of a Communist system is not free to work as he wishes; his autonomy is earned in parts from the state.
The nationalist of the Fascist state is defined as an element of the nation.
Without the underlying fabric of "self," what would these archetypes be defined in terms of?
And the clincher is that the "individual" of Ayn Rand's Objectivist fantasy world came, after years of Objectivized discussion, to attain similar properties that have made Ayn Rand's followers into the soulless drones we occasionally come into contact with in the shady back rooms of Universities accross the United States.
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The Eye makes the Object Object.
An Object with Eye grows in Objecthood.
An Object without Eye becomes no Object.
“The insanity of the collective egoistic mind, amplified by science and technology, is rapidly taking our species to the brink of disaster. Evolve or die: that is our only choice now.”
-Eckhart Tolle
-----
It is strange to me that Ayn Rand espoused "Individuality" as a virtue and then turned around and cast dispersion on collectivism.
Did she not recognize that "Individuality" as symbol is necessary to a collective view of humanity?
It is necessary metaphysically: a society cannot be properly called a "collective" if it is not a "collective" of something.
It is necessary culturally: by applying the "Individual" label to a man, his peculiarity is displaced. He is simply a physical instance of an abstract prototype.
In fact, it is precisely the underlying concept of fundamental, eternal self that has enabled the most monstrous examples of collectivized thinking throughout history. Communism/Socialism could not be ideologically justified without the concept of a single worker's dignity. Christianity without the concept of "a soul to be saved" would be empty. The Fascist state would not thrive without each individual being defined in terms of the state.
But it is precisely these archetypes which give cultural systems the leverage they need to deal with the individual as cog, slave, worker bee, sacrificial goat.
For the "soul" of a Christian is not a flat identifier or a personal vessel to be filled with content at the whim of the owner. The "soul" has definite properties - it is capable of sin, it is free, etc. These properties allow the church organism to act strongly on the body of the soul.
The "worker" of a Communist system is not free to work as he wishes; his autonomy is earned in parts from the state.
The nationalist of the Fascist state is defined as an element of the nation.
Without the underlying fabric of "self," what would these archetypes be defined in terms of?
And the clincher is that the "individual" of Ayn Rand's Objectivist fantasy world came, after years of Objectivized discussion, to attain similar properties that have made Ayn Rand's followers into the soulless drones we occasionally come into contact with in the shady back rooms of Universities accross the United States.
---
The Eye makes the Object Object.
An Object with Eye grows in Objecthood.
An Object without Eye becomes no Object.