Character Individuality and Community

In the plunge to become a civilization we endure the depersonalization of the individual so that we can build the coherent whole. Perhaps we can assume that there was once a nomad, a solitary man, a true hermit, and that this creature would travel through the savannah and occasionally pause to rape an equally solitary wanderer so as to guarantee the survival the nomad species.

It gets a little more ridiculous than that, we have to assume that the herd instinct was something that we developed after being born into the environment. It was to our benefit to join forces and act as part of a primitive social group so as to round up the prey with greater ease and at a lower physical toll. There was however a charge, sharing, we had to be willing to accept the others, not necessarily as equals but certainly as participants that would have to partake in the feedings from our prey.

Again the assumption here is that through conditioned we realized that if we became like a pack of wolves, perhaps we learned it from them or a pack of dogs, or hyenas, or any of those that have hunted in packs, that we could also do the same. It didn’t even have to be so direct even just seeing the ravaging success of stampeding cows we could surmise that mass behavior had its advantages; and sense it was new to our experience we could not have foreseen its flaws such as the birth of averageness and franchised existence.

Only that is very doubtful, the human species as it came into existence did not have time to learn to socialize, it is highly unlikely and even impossible to believe that a human child with the mother having 9 month gestation period, and with the new born being a highly vulnerable from the perspective of its learning curve which may well reach into the fifth year of existence before making the nomad child competent enough at lest to avoid major dangers and to assist in basic food gathering activities such as the gathering of grains and perhaps even to assist with noise making during the hunt. And even if the child could survive we must assume that a pregnant woman has at least in her last 3 months of pregnancy some action and perimeter limitations. It is therefore not difficult to conclude that there was not time to learn group associated food gathering and herd ensured security.

If it wasn’t a learnt instinct, then it must have been something innate to the species, we must have been endemically aware of what we needed to do from birth to form the tribe; and it naturally follows then that we were never nomads, we were always social creatures, and inherently acted in the interest of the unconscious tribe.

The problem for evolution is that it assumes that homo sapiens had time to learn, you don’t, there isn’t any time to learn and this is specially so in a dangerous, volatile and primitive environments. There is no time to learn, all learning takes place at a supra consciousness level that mostly appeals to the next generation, the existing generation must do with much of what was learnt by the previous one.

It can not be overstated that there is no greater argument against evolution than the fact that it is based on associations, it is the axiomatic evolution of evolution itself that throws it into the dilemma box; if all things are on the planet earth is it then a greater possibility that they have something in common with each other than not? And if so, if it is possible that because I am on planet earth that I have something in common with a diamond, fungus, turtle, a snake and even a dinosaur, if this is so then is it because I am in the same habitat, is it because I am in the same environment, is it because we are all carbon based, oxygen breathing? And if that is the case then how can evolution which can not be observed but can only be surmised from continuous assumptions of continually broken links, which are themselves surmised from logically imposed continuity, how can be that an absolute truth?

And it is not without some reverence for evolution that I dare say it is by some assumption logical to believe that there is something wrong with the nature of our logic and with the logic that argues against evolution; as there must be an equal and troubling doubt to the logic which annihilates faith and grotesquely utters rational standards. To some degree evolution must be a victim of its promoter, it must suffer at the hands of its master, logic stands above all of its children and it must be able to evolve against them if necessary.

Which leads us to the character of the person, which does not have to have anything in common with the human being which it exploits to its own benefit; and that in itself does not have to be a benefit to the possessor of character which in the end result is only a necessary product as the flower caters to the plant and bee caters to the sexual interaction between strangers that have everything in common.

And with that we come to our final phase, community. The aspect ratio of individuality is cornered by community. You are not yourself an individual, you can not recreate humanity from yourself, you don’t have the ability to generate an entire humanity, rather humanity creates you, the very concept of your existence is an end result of your social conscience; society allows you to feel your individuality because it is inconsequential, it doesn’t affect the whole, if it did it would be abolished.

It is perhaps the most difficult aspect of being to endure, that we are not special, and yet we can not ignore it, the need for us to be special has to have a genuine association with reality. And indeed it does, your need to feel special allows you to seek approval, it makes you seek a reference to your humanity, either of approval or disdain, either of caring or indifference, but the aspect ratio is based on the congeniality or not of your self essence to your humanity, you decide but your decisions are based on the parameters of your interaction with humanity; you seek its recognition of yourself essence but in truth your need for recognition allows for your subservience to the social entity; of which your individuality is presumably greater.

In relationship then, we must assume that it is logical to be logical because it is the safest approach to any given conceptualization hence the reason why evolution feels good and works for us. In the same manner that evolution can be a default so too can the characterization of personality. So as we approach the concept of being we must bring into suspicion the concept of self, as it is more likely to represent a greater concept still and not in it self fundamental to what we are, to what we wish to become or to what we endear ourselves to be.

If it is logical to see associations in evolution then it stands to reason that there are associations in the build up to personality. Character is born from the imprint of the humanity that possesses it. Individuals will have character as a result of the society that they live in. Character then has its limitations, bound to the culture and to the times of the country and the world from which it rises.

The independence of the individual is locked within a framework that is invisible to the very individual that possess it, as is the species locked into the environment that it inhabits. Characters as they define their personality have no way of seeing their limitations nor do they comprehend the perimeter of character as it is define by conditioning or exposed and moved by social dynamic.

As character and the range of its individuality is defined by the society so in turn community will be born from those limitations, however community becomes a greater influence over the very individuals that define it, even as community is fragile and prone to tragedy through the actions perpetrated by individuals. Community isolates the individual by process of ignoring individuality and that causes a reactionary character that seeks to define its essence away from the massification that community silently enforces. Community is a gentle creature and as such it seeks only a semblance of balance, which is precisely why it can be raped by mere character.

The conflict between character and community is a modern one, there is no such thing as an individual conflict against the social, the community and the cultural whole, that is until the rise of the modern world, where individuals have been arrested through the inspiration of individuality. Individuality of course has no value or context outside of the social fabric, which in turn exposes it as a fallacy.

But if that is the case then why is the social allowing for the rise of the individual? It is very simple when a society needs to alter its dynamic, when community requires a modification of character, it must cause its individuals to react and to create an unstable condition so as to allow a social alteration and reformation. Currently we are faced with such a condition, the rise of character is the equivalent of the bricks revolting against the wall so as to deconstruct and reconstruct themselves.

That this is all done within the confines of the social order and the community is of course not apparent to anyone, hence the faith that we have in individual freedom of action.

RC