Individualism

Here is a philosophical question: why do people try to create the illusion of fusing every one into one entity with no individual parts?~

They try to do this with every thing, but I see this most often in relation to organizations that tend to be highly structured to begin with such as the military.~

Greetings, my name is Mike and I believe many of you have seen me before on these forums.~ I have returned to discuss this.~ Many of you may be surprised to know that I am now in the U.S.A. Navy military, but why?~ Why be surprised?~ Are organizations with structure really that polar opposite to the ideals of those associated with being a hippie?~ This is the problem I am talking about.~

The fact is the military of the U.S.A has changed, it has changed before, and will continue to change.~ The military is a job, it has only as much meaning as you put into it.~ Here lies the problem: people who know nothing about the military and who are not in the military (most people), those who know about the military and who are in the military, and those who do not know about the military and who are in the military: at times these people will try to insist that they have no free will, that they are not an individual, and that some how "the military" is some kind of giant puppet hand that reaches inside you and controls you.~ This is all a lie.~

We choose to work for our country in this way of our own free will, we choose to follow orders, we chose to sign our legal contracts of yearly service, we choose all of this: the military can help make you into a better person, but it can not MAKE you into one.~ Those who believe they have "no free will" in the military: You are only deluding yourself and endangering every one around you by continuing with this kind of thinking.~

The military emphasizes "team-work", we are a "team" of many "teams" and we look out for each other as well as those we have sworn to protect and/or to help in some way.~ Not all of us "shoot guns", not all of us "blow things up", many of us never even see the "front lines".~ No job in a team is more or less important than any other job, there is no difference of this in the military: we have bankers, we have shooters, we have parachute sewers, and we have hospital workers.~ We are a "team" and we are as strong as those individuals that make us up.~ When an individual is some how "off" we are weakened and that individual may even become a burden.~

By insisting you have "no free will" you are refusing to take responsibility for any of your actions and yourself.~ You are not a "good soldier" (or what ever else you claim to be), you useless, lazy, irresponsible, immature, and you give what ever you claim to represent a false horrible reputation. You are useless in any situation that requires complex individual thinking, because you refuse to admit you are an individual and that you "think" at all.~ You are a burden.~ This is not prehistoric-times and we are not cavepeople, we don't need drooling idiots, today's modern times requires intellectuals (those who choose to think for the sake of thinking) with the drive to drive themselves.~ The military is not some "force" that pushes you along from the inside when you need it, that is all you.~ Be all you can be, believe in yourself and you can be any thing.~

I don't understand why people like this don't see the reality of things, that we are never truly "without individualism" in order to EXIST you HAVE to BE an "individual".~

 

I think people do it because people are easily excitable. It's fun to look for answers, and part of looking for answers is thinking you've found them. But people are wrong 99.9999% of the time. All in all it's a pretty innocent, albeit potentially annoying, thing.

 

These "answers" seem more like idiocy and illogicalness to me.~ Logically how can one "not be an individual"?~ The fact that you think at all makes you an "individual".~ Therefore that previous "thought-process" is self-defeating.~

 

It is pretty illogical. "Be like me...an individual." But if you're saying in the first place that someone isn't an individual because they're like someone else, then how are they an individual for being like you? We all make our choices, and for personal, individual reasons.

 

Yep, you're in the military alright. Good luck with all that.

My brother was in the Navy. Once he told me he had to help pick up the tiny pieces of his buddys body off the tarmac of an aircraft carrier after he turned the wrong way and walked into a jet engine. My bro is fucked up to this day because of that and "other things" he saw during his time as a tactical recon photographer.

 

You are assuming things and therefore that is why your post makes no sense to me.~

 

It happens, military life doesn't make it happen more often by itself.~ Circumstances do.~ Believe it or not, we don't all work in environments that are more likely to cause deaths.~ I'm more likely to die falling down the stairs at my house of 4 steps then getting shot and killed in "the line of duty" as MY "line of duty" is making the weather report literally.~

There are far more of us doing things other than "combat" and without us doing these things those so-called "heroes" out there wouldn't be able to do their jobs.~

You need about 5 people to clean and repair the gun for every 1 big gun out in the desert, otherwise the sand will all but destroy it.~

We're a team, there are those out there risking their lives, but most us risk our lives to a far less likely degree, that doesn't make our jobs any less meaningful or important.~

The military is a job, it is what you make of it.~

Yeah death "happens", but you know what: every one dies, every where, military or not, there are limitless ways to die just like there are limitless ways to live, there are risks every where, that's often just how life and the circumstances are, you could even have a ceiling fan fall and kill you while working at Walmart: it may not be the most likely way to die, but it's still possible, any thing is possible, the great thing about life is that it can be both terrifying and wonderful at the same time, but I'm not afraid to die, why should I be? I don't know what's beyond death I hope it's enjoyable but I really don't know and most people don't they can "believe" but they don't "know": sounds like an adventure to me!~ ^_^

 

Who you trying to fool? 'The military' makes death happen, it is a death machine and you are a part of that. But that was your decision as an individual.

 

u have got it all wrong my friend.

 

Glad I'm not making any sense.

 

It would be better if the military was used as the WPA, CC camps and other organizations that Roosevelt instituted, were used. Working on infrastructure, national parks, and being available to assist when disasters strike anywhere on the globe. Way, way too much money, time, people and resources used for the age old ways of acquiring wealth, power, land or religious dominance. Make no mistake about it--you are cannon fodder. Forget individuality. This is not 1400--or 1800 or even 1900. If you're in todays military, you need to shut the fuck up and do as you're told, or figure out FOR YOURSELF exactly what the military is used for and buy it or don't.

 

There. That oughta' bring out the suck-asses of the ruling class.

 

Its good to see that the military hasn't changed you too much Bliss!

 

because We are one and there is no real separation between us. yet we are separate. Make some sense from that!

 

The group ethic is a planter culture and post-planter culture ethic. Even industrial age individualism is largely a group ethic based individualism, in other words it is, in many ways, a thin layer of individualism masking a group ethic---for example, people seek to be different by joining a subculture---a goth triies to be different by being a goth, but is merely a member of a goth subculture (a group). Industrial age individualism is really just an elitism---where every member of every group sees his or her own group as 'better than anyone outside of the group. If you don't believe me, try giving a carpenter or a plumber carpenting or plumbing advice---if you too are not a carpenter or plumber, you will quickly see what it means to be an outsider to their professional group (unless they happen to be polite).

The original hippy movement was probably one of the first, if not the very first, group to embrace true individuality among post-planter cultures. If some of the original hippies walked around dressed as they did then, people, including young people who call themselves hippies today, would find them to be very weird to say the least. This is one of the reasons why I see the hippies as Nietzsche's ubermensch or Supermen.

Carl Jung saw mankind's goal of development as individuation---becoming a whole individual, but very very few actually achieve a level of full individuation.

Eastern religion is more group-oriented than Western religion, because Eastern religion is culturally based in cultures that are more deeply immersed in planter culture group ethic. This also reflects the fact that all through Asia and the Middle East, where this group ethic is the strongest, you have the oldest civilizations that have grown directly out of the City-States of ancient times. European Christianity clearly reflects influences of the pagan cultures that were converted later, and are younger planter cultures. Greek philosophy also had its pagan influences regarding the individual.

All of civilized history is as much a history of the individual vs the group as it is the objective vs the subjective, and in the West, rational vs the irrational (of the mind-body dilemma).

To find natural individualism you have to turn to indigenous cultures that have a greater hunter-gatherer ethic influencing their zeitgeist.

 

A Native American author (Jamake Highwater, in his book, The Primal Mind) made the point in his book that Western Individualism is kind of a scary concept to indigenous people. It is a Freedom to 'make it.' The problem is that if you do not 'make it' or become 'somebody' then you simply end up as a nobody. And if you screw up, that history (e.g. credit history, criminal history, employment history) follows you, and defines you, the rest of your life.

This is very different from the individualism of a tribal society, where you are free to be who you are. Even your name can change to reflect who you are. And who you are today, may be very different from who you were decades ago as a know-it-all teenager who made bad choices.

I relate this to the closeness that is found in healthy families. Everyone in a family is an individual, but because they are family and have lived their lives together, there is a closeness and acceptance of each individual, and each individual difference. I have experienced this kind of closeness with the Lakota (Sioux) in ceremony---most strongly in the hanblechiya ceremony (vision quest) which is a very individual-based experience, but is experienced within the framework of the group. While the individuals are sitting up on the hill, experiencing spirit in a way that only an individual can, each with their own individual teachings, and visions, and whatever----everyone else is down below supporting each and every individual. The sweat lodge fire is kept burning; everyone is praying for the ones on the hill; the people carry the individual's medicine bundles and the things he or she needs on the hill up to their spot, and build their altar, and then back down for them at the end of vision quest; and so forth. There is a very strong closeness that develops that is hard to put into words. Everyone is accepted as individuals, and not expected to fit into any mold.

 

That really sounds like a more sensible way to live ones life than what has evolved in the dominant culture. The native americans were swept away as being savages as "manifest destiny" unfolded. When I mentioned to one of my friends about the native americans having their land stolen from them, she said--"well, they weren't using it."

 

i feel sorry for ur friend.

 

Collectively though such a group of religiously unified families have an common ground to receive for the science known of the work and production of the planned survival. The common ground is received around the medicine and the nature of agriculture for the lesson only certain members of these communities are chosen for. How they are chosen is from conscience for their elders, and it is a dictatorship. It is a clean uncommon ground of knowing Nature for it's wordedness and superstition that gives the individualist opportunities.

One would wonder though about the shared faith in the truth for a PHilosophy of Nature. Is that individualistic? In the sioux it is for the bias of a lot of prejudice to dispose Science to universal truths about Law and Trust. Maybe not when the tolerance for freedom is also applied.

 

if you have a million bottles, all open on one end, each one completely different, and they're sitting on one world with the same air within and around them, where do you say the air within one is a different thing from the air in another, or around all of them. thus is no conflict between individual and connected.