Individual and Society

When we survey our lives and endeavours, we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires is bound up with the existence of other human beings. We notice that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have produced, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and belief has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacity would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beastlike in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is, and has the significance that he has, not so much by virtue of his individuality but rather as a member of great human community, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.

A man’s value, to the community depends primarily on how far his reelings, thoughts and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to his attitude in this respect. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depends entirely on his social qualities. And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It can be easily seen that all the valuable achievements, material, spiritual and moral which we receive from society have been brought about in the course of countless generations by creative individuals. Someone once discovered the use of fire, someone the cultivation of edible plants, and someone the steam engine. Only the individual who can think, and thereby create new values for society, may even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the Community. The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close social cohesion.