The world is a funny place if you think about it. For generations humans have lived together trying to better themselves for one reason or another. All too often we forget that this material world that we live in is only for a finite amount of time. Yet we spend so much of our time here trying to improve ourselves materially.
Human history is plagued by a constant battle between the individual and the community. Many times the success of the individual helps the community, and the betterment of community in turn helps the individual. However these situations are much less proportionate than the selfishness of the individual and the paranoia of the community. North American history is ripe with instances in which the greed of the individual has destroyed communities, or of a community’s greed has destroyed the individual. This is true with all history though. It comes down to, who is the individual, and what community do they compose? For, if the individual is a self-serving being, then the community that this individual belongs will absorb that trait and allow it be a part of the normal functions of that community. Thus transferring that quality to other individuals within that community.
We are in an age and a community where the individual is portrayed as the most important being on this planet. The ramification of such a narrow outlook on the world fosters a community of individuals unaware or unwilling to see that they are part of a greater global community. The problem arises out of trying to create a separate identity for each member within a community so that on the surface they are different, but at the core they are still very much similar. These similarities are the object of individual change. While, as a result of the individual attempting to find a unique definition, community itself has changed to accommodate this definition by fostering a residual individual-community from others of similar composition. For instance, consider the growth of the nation state. By unifying a community based on a particular identity we have formed a global system that is defined by our differences. Yet the problem arises when others from outside the unified community attempt to enter it and alter its composition. In the name of protecting the community, violence against those that attempt to change the identity of that community inevitably occurs. Consider also the growth of religious faiths that define both the individual and the community. Ideologies have worked in the same way, such as the black-and-white lines of the Cold War between Communism and Capitalism. Our current situation in the world is simply and extension of these past conflicts between individuals and communities, and has also merged them into a persistence attack on humanity and the planet.
How then can we move beyond this situation? While differences amongst each other are something that creates our uniqueness, the trouble arises when we place too much emphasis on individual differences and the differences between communities. Solely focusing on these differences and our willingly, or inadvertent ignorance of others is going to continue to place us all in ultimate danger. We, as individuals and as communities, must remember not our differences but our similarities. We are all humans, we all live on this planet, and like it or not we all have to live together.
