Philosophy Now Forum

What is the relationship between the one, the individual
and the many, the state/society?

The Kantian questions of ''What am I to do?" and ''What can I know?""
and ''What should I believe in?'' are also we questions...
''What are we to do?" "What can we know?" "What should we believe in?"
any individual question "I" can be turned into a ''We'' question......
Much of the 20th and 21st century intellectual work has been done on
this question of the relationship between the one and the many......
Sociology, a study that didn't really begin until the 1830's, is focused
on the society and individuals... Comte can be considered to be the
first Sociologist... and in a very real sense, Marx can be considered
to be the second Sociologist..... What is the relationship between
the one and the many/state, is an ongoing theme within Marxism....

The isms and ideologies of today, are reflections of the connections
between the one and the state/many.... Capitalism is simply a
viewpoint between the state and the one.....as is communism,
as is democracy and dictatorships and monarchies.....

As the viewpoint of a dictatorship or monarchy suggests,
that the average person is unable or incapable of having
the ability to guide their own life.... they need someone to
''steer'' them into the good life.... that is the bottom line
belief of both dictatorships and Monarchies....
whereas in a democracy, the bottom line belief is that
human beings are capable of guiding their own values
and actions......... the political and economic viewpoints one
holds are a reflection of how one views people.... whither
they are capable of conducting their own business or not....
and if not, then we have dictatorships and monarchies to do just
that..... one of the assumptions built into both dictatorships
and monarchies is the lack of change... it is assumed that people
cannot and will not change.. from needed to be guided to
being able to guide oneself.... from a dictatorship/monarchy
to a democracy.... within dictatorships/monarchies,
there is no sense of movement that allows a people, to grow
into a democracy..... the idea behind a dictatorship/monarchy
is that there is no way or means to travel from one state, not
being able to guide oneself, to being able to guide oneself....
there is no transition language in a dictatorship/monarchy....

The English idea of Monarchy is basically a strange mix of
monarchy weirdly built on a democratic ideal.... the
head of state is a monarchy, but the real power lies within
the typical democratic state.... a prime minister, a de facto
president, a congress/parliament, with voting rights for citizens....
there are clear cultural differences between the US and the UK,
but not enough to distinguish them into two separate entities....
so, the English idea is still basically the democratic ideal of
one man, one vote....

and we see that democracies can have differences, but
those differences are basically cosmetic differences...
skin deep differences, the basic principles still apply....
that the single individual has some say over who makes
the rules and who pays.... which is government 101....

whereas in dictatorships or strict monarchies, the individual
has no say in this question of, who makes the rules and who pays....

this question of autonomy and choice, is a basic question that
stems from the Enlightenment.... where the point was that
we are capable of making our own choices... we don't have
a need for a fixed state/or institutions like the Church to force
us into opinions or beliefs.... the questions within our modern day
society/state are simply questions brought about by the Enlightenment...

our modern day questions of who rules and who pays, are driven
by the points of the Enlightenment...... whose bottom line
beliefs are that we no longer need churches and dictatorships
to guide us into the future because we are capable of making our
own choices as to what we want, today and tomorrow....

and the bottom line here is the role between the one, the individual
and the many/state... what is my relationship with the state/society?
and as always, when I use the word one or my, I am also saying,
what is our relationship between us and the state/society?

Foucault for example, made this connection within his studies of mental
illness and of prisons... these are institutions which make a pronouncements
of what is or what isn't ''normal'' actions or behavior by an individual.....
what is ''deviant'' actions or behavior within a state/or society?
Deviate too far from the norms of a state/society and one faces
either the mental institution or the prison..... and who gets to choose
what is deviant behavior? this question is not an abstract question,
it lies at the heart of societies today.... Look at Russia, any criticism
of Russia or Putin is considered to be deviant behavior and is punished
by the state... and in the United States today, any criticism of
America is considered to be deviant words and is worthy
of punishment by the extreme right wing of America....
the constitution notwithstanding... and the extreme right wing
has said that those on the left are subhuman and should be facing
prison or even death.... and among the deviant actions or behavior
of the left is being gay or trans or cross-dressing..... social behavior
that is not, is not socially acceptable..... once again, leaving out
the question of who rules/who decides what is deviant and what
is the judgement of those who are ''deviant'' of the norms of America?

and we have, in all of this, we have not left the question of
what is the relationship between the one, the individual
and the state/society.... Is the individual actions, the one, being
gay or trans, is that deviant enough for the state/society to take
actions against it and, more importantly, why is that important
enough to take actions against being gay or trans?

Morality, ethical questions are always questions involving the
relationship between the one and the state/society..... Always.....
for ethics/morals are questions about what is acceptable behavior
within a state/or society and who decides?
and we can see that all questions of morality and ethics being social
questions in the example of Robinson Crusoe.... a man living alone,
with no other people around has no moral or ethical problems....
because when living by oneself, all alone means that there are no
questions about morality.... moral and ethical questions come into
play with two... with the addition of Friday, suddenly we have
the question of morality and ethics.... ethics, morality only
matter with two or more people..... how do I treat another,
how does Crusoe treat Friday is a question of morals, ethics...
and the basis of all society, states begins, with the addition of
one plus one.... with two or more people, we have the state
or society....and what is deviant behavior or actions within two
or more people? Kinda depends on what one calls ''deviant''
actions or behaviors? perhaps it is actions or behavior that
threaten me in some fashion? but what about certain actions
or behaviors that threaten a state or a society, is that deviant
behavior? Depends on the state/ or society......

So, what looks like a rather simple question or idea, becomes
quite complicated....

So, what is the relationship between the one, the individual
and the many, the state, exactly? Once we have defined this,
perhaps, perhaps we can, once and for all, end these questions
of the relationship between the individual and the state/society?

Kropotkin

a tougher question becomes this: we know that individual man/
human beings have a psychological aspect.... an unconscious aspect
as Freud discovered.... we are, individually, moved into or out of
actions based on our own individual psychological motivations...
for example, in my childhood, let us say, I was not given enough love
for my own individual self (note, I was), and we can see how in adulthood,
I am driven by this psychological need to seek out love.... both within
an individual and a wider social course... oftentimes, those who
engage in ARTISTIC careers, like in being an actor or a comedian,
are ones who psychologically need to be loved... not always of course,
but a fair amount of the time...they are psychologically driven
to seek out approval and love... and sometimes, not always but
sometimes the person in question will acknowledge this need....
and with this said, how does this manifest itself communally?
 
In other words, does this individual need for love and approval,
have some sort of communal aspect to it? We can spot politicians
that have this need for love and approval as part of their psychological
makeup... an example of this is IQ45 and Tricky Dick... (Richard Nixon
for you, young folks) and in this way we can see how our psychological
needs are engaged in a public, communal fashion.......

we can also see how our own private psychological states are given
public form.... we have a very strong part of our psychological state
in being, as Maslow puts it, in safety/security part of our psychological
state..... part of being human is in being safe and secure...
but also part of the psychological state is in having love, having esteem,
a sense of belonging... these are fundamental aspects of being human....
as part of our unconscious needs of being human.....

So, the state/society must, in some fashion, fulfill these
fundamental aspects of being human.... the need for safety/security,
the need for esteem and a sense of belonging.... and we can see this in
the drive for the safety/security drive for police or the armed forces
or even in the need for laws and capital punishment.... all of these
are part of our psychological needs for safety/security....
and what of the need for a sense of belonging... we can see this in
the nationalism aspect of existence..... pride in nation... this gives
us some sense of belonging to a powerful and esteemed nation....
People who chant, USA, USA, USA, USA... are those who are
in possession of a sense of belonging.... and there is nothing
inherently wrong with this sense of belonging... the Greeks had it,
the Romans had it, virtually every state/civilization has had this sense
of belonging within the state/civilization.... it helps answer part of our
psychological needs... our own self worth is tied up in the
value of the state/society/civilization we live in....
and this is natural.... and to be expected...
and this is one way in which our own private psychological needs
are met by the state/civilization we belong to.....

So, we can see how the state/civilization we live in, allows us to
met our own private psychological needs......

although it is unspoken, one of the primary needs of human beings is
hope..... we need, must have hope of some sort to live by, in order for
us to get out of bed in the morning..... for without hope,
what exactly are we living for? we hope for many things...
and that is not only right, but can be expected.... the hope that
tomorrow is better than today... as a parent, I truly hope for this...
not necessarily for my sake, but for the sake of my child....
and should she ever have children, also for their sake....
the prospect of hope has driven many a person when all else
has failed.... when all else has failed and a person has nowhere
else to go, people often turn to god... at the very bottom of
living one's life... but that is really nothing more than a turn to
hope... As the Buddhist have stated, that life is nothing more
than a series of sufferings, of old age, of disease, of death...
we hope to find something that will give us reason to get up
in the morning... for a person with no hope, has no reason,
of any kind, to get up in the morning.... no reason to live....
hope is that reason to live..... and how does that need for
hope, for something to get up in the morning, play out in
our social, communal lives?

Look at the two presidential campaigns going on in America today....
the IQ45 campaign is about how terrible America is today....
they focus on crime and the inner city and the negativity of
immigration.... every campaign idea is focused around the
negativity of America... of how bad everything is.....
where is the hope in that negativity? In the pretend promises
of IQ45.....a wannabe dicatator.....

Whereas in the Harris/Walz campaign, we have a far more positive,
hopeful campaign.... and one might say, what promises do the
Democrats hope to fulfill? and thus missing the point of hope....
Hope itself, that is the promise being made..... it is hope itself that
brings us something to live for.... FDR was elected president in 1932,
not because of his election promises, but because he brought back
hope for the future.... oftentimes it is not the promises itself
that we want, but the possibilities of hope, that we need
and vote for.....

hope makes life worth living, along with love, two choices that
quite often don't make any sense, but it's true....
a life without hope or love, has nothing to recommend itself to us...
but give us hope and love, we can overcome virtually any obstacle
that we face..... this relationship between the one, the individual
and the many, the state, can hinge on this question of hope and love....
if the state, the many doesn't offer us, either hope or love, why bother
with the state? Why bother with being a part of a society, a state that
has nothing to offer us including hope or the possibility of love?

our own individual psychological status can lead us to a better
understanding of our public, commonality of existence......
we can use our own private understanding of own psychology
to better understand our public state...

Kropotkin