On The Individual: Revisited

A year ago I wrote an essay titled “On The Individual (A Rant)”. I wrote the essay during the riots following the death of George Floyd. During that time it was obvious to me that far too many people were operating in the world as though they were simply an extension of a group or ideology, and more insidious, that everyone else was as well. Through this lens man is not a complex being, instead he is well defined by the group he inhabits. He can easily be categorized as good or bad based on his political party, his skin tone, or his sexual identity. Through this lens, being oppressed means being virtuous regardless of your character—regardless of your actions. A good man is no longer good if he inhabits the wrong group. In fact, man (as in male) is no longer good. Men have been nothing but trouble throughout all of history. They have held all the power, done all of the oppressing, and women have not benefitted from it at all. Through this lens, you are responsible for your fathers sins, and if he didn’t sin, then you are responsible for his fathers sins.

This view of the world has only gotten more popular in the past year. It’s touted as progress. Postmodernism found it’s way into universities first, then corporations. Then it showed up in politics and now high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. The cancerous group ideology has spread under the guise of kindness—resentment masquerading as empathy. Or as Zarathustra cried out “And ‘will to equality’—that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against everything that has power we will raise our outcry! You preachers of equality, the tyrant-madness of impotence cries thus in you for ‘equality’: thus your most secret tyrant appetite disguises itself in words of virtue!…Revenge sounds out all of their complaints, a malevolence is in all their praise; and to be judge seems bliss to them. But thus I counsel you, my friends: mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”

One is put in a labor camp or death camp for his or her group affiliation. But upon entering, one survives or dies as an individual. This is exactly what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn realized during his 10 years in a Soviet gulag. “The line separating good and evil passes no through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart”. Every individuals heart. As strange as it seems, I think reading and thinking about concentration camps, labor camps, prison, and torture can be used to better understand the individual,

The individual is a strange paradox of immense control as well as immense lack of control. Which ideology takes power is almost completely out of your control and so whether you are thrown into a camp is also out of your control. However, even in the worst circumstances you still hold complete control over your attitude. Concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way”. At the very least an individual can control his or her attitude, but how much light can be shined on the world from an individual who strives toward their potential?

“Let the lie come into the world. Let it even triumph. But not through me. The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie” Solzhenitsyn said after being released from the labor camps. His refusal to take part in the lie and his book The Gulag Archipelago helped to put an end to the Soviet Union. Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. changed entire nations. John Rabe saved the lives of 200,000 Chinese civilians. A carpenter from Nazareth altered the course of history for the entire world.

The individual has very little control over politics and world events. However, the individual has complete control over oneself and can choose to be a light in the world or a blight.

“Here is your great soul—the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe and would rather reform the gods than reform himself” -Seneca