See the Individual Not the Collective
We live in a divisive world where politicians create division. Politicians create division between different groups of people based on arbitrary characteristics like skin colour, religion, ethnicity, you name it. The division creates us versus them. Them, those people over there who look like that are demonised as the “other”. Policy is passed into law to protect us from them or to advance us over them. The nature of us versus them is to create collective groups. The rights, responsibilities and unique circumstances of the individual are cast aside in the interests of the so called collective.
Here are some examples of these collectives:
1. Asians
2.
Hispanics
3. LBGTQ
4. Jews
5. Millennials
6. Boomers
7. Blacks
8. Catholics
9. Hutus
10. Shall I keep going?
Do you see your group on the list? How does it make you feel to be included on the list? Perhaps your group is excluded from the list; do you feel left out? The list is arbitrary; it could have been made up of several other groups. The moment you name a group, there is automatically another group that is excluded.
All atrocities are committed against a group of others. The worst atrocities end up in genocide. When we define a group, we overlook the importance of the individual. Every individual has rights. Every person has their story, their journey through life and their family.
Think about the latest pair of groups thrust upon us by the fearmongering authorities, aided by corporate media. The vaccinated and the unvaccinated. The message is that the vaccinated should fear the unvaccinated because they will infect you and cause your demise. Based on this, the so-called well-being of the collective must be put ahead of the individual’s rights, with no regard for the individual’s circumstances. Notice how the subject of natural immunity has been completely ignored in the interest of creating this other group that is supposedly a threat.
Are you part of the vaccinated group wanting to deprive the unvaccinated of their rights to freedom? Think about why you should have power over another person or group of people. Is it because of the virtue you assign yourself to be part of one group and not another? When you have power over others by virtue of the group you find yourself in, think about that power being used against you next time you might be in the other group.
When we group people and think of them as a collective, it is easy to dehumanise them. We feel safe when we dehumanise the other group because we have the support of our group. When we look at the individual and realise that they are also a father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter, we are all equal. On an individual level, there is no power over the other. We are all human in the same group.
Justin Spencer-Young
