Philosophy Now Forum

How do we reconcile this opposition between
the one/individual and the state/society.....

to meet its needs the state requires us to be economic
slaves..... to be expendable and to devote everything to the
state/society.......in the modern state, there is no off time....
even on our days off, we are required to respond to any request
from our work..... and mind you, there is no difference between
the state and businesses/corporations... in our modern world, they
are one and the same.... at least in the state, one has a few rights
whereas in the business/corporation world, we have far less rights.....

and to meet its needs, the individual needs certain things.....the
modern welfare state is an attempt to meet those needs of food,
water, shelter, education and health care.... the bodily needs,
and the psychological needs, of love, of self-esteem, of safety/
security, of a sense of belonging..... the state attempts to meet
every single one of these needs.... the ideology of nationalism
is an attempt to love the nation, we can replace our need for
individual love, of loving another person with the love of the
state or nation or the society..... we can find our need to identify
with the identification of ourselves within the state,
we can find safety/security needs within the state,
we can find our need for belonging in belonging to the state....
every single psychological need can also be answered by the
state/society......

but I hold there are needs within human beings that cannot be
met or fulfilled by the state.....there is the need for
what I might call the ''Aesthetic need''... that is need that cannot
be answered by money or fame or titles, but a need for
''Aesthetics'' is the need for seeing beauty and the need
for what broadly might be called the ''ARTS'' for example,
I am listening to music right now..... this need for
the ''ARTS'' for music, literature, paintings, the beauty of
landscaping, the moment of the sunset, a view of far off
mountains..... these are a part of the ''human condition''
and a necessary part of being human.....
and how can the state create moments of this
''human condition?'' It can't.... the fact is that some of
the deepest needs of being human cannot be answered
by the state or the society......

this conflict between the individual and the state/society has
gone on since the very beginning, since human beings started
walking the earth.... and it is not going away any time soon......

so, how do we solve this problem of the needs of the state/society
conflicting with the needs of the one, the individual?
there is a similar conflict on a more personal level,
the father wants, needs the son to follow in his business
and the son, wants nothing to do with it.... this conflict
is also as old as there have been human being....
the individual needs vs the family need....
is the same conflict on a smaller scale.....

the needs of the one vs the needs of the state....

How do we solve this age old problem?

Kropotkin

The sobering reminder that there are facets of the human experience that cannot be completely measured or controlled comes from realizing the "Aesthetic need" as something beyond of government grasp.

Every individual and every group has an agenda. One can successfully navigate yourself (as an individual) and your family (as a group), by correctly guessing the agendas of those individuals and groups (including the "state") and positioning such that you take advantage of what other entities are going to do anyway.