Be a part
We are all ordinary. The parents and teachers that told us we were “special” were saying this so that we could grow up with an understanding that our needs, desires and dreams mattered. They wanted us to believe that our voices mattered and were unique. This is true, they do matter. We do have the capacity to speak and create in original ways although it seems to me that any individual creation is soon consumed by the collective mass of society. We exist in a world with 8 billion others of our particular species and because we share so much both genetically and socially, it is hard to feel that our contributions or thoughts are any more than a drop in the bucket of homosapien history.
We as individuals don’t exist apart from our collective society. I think of the men who died building the world’s railroad and bridges, or the women who threw their reputations and livelihoods on the line to earn basic human rights. We rarely know the individuals unless we pay particular attention, or have some special interest in the matter. What we remember is the collective accomplishment of the eventual attainment. Our society is what remains. Each generation has the power to exert a brush stroke on the canvas of human existence, but as individuals we are but a hair on that same brush. We can’t imprint unless we are part of a combined effort. Individuals can inspire this change, and indeed we have seen throughout history the power of charismatic, alluring presences that provoke united movements. But without the tide of society and a collective energy behind them, they would be only a single narrative lost at sea, a meteor that shines brightly but soon afterwards disappears in the darkness of night.
What I am trying to say is that we must, and it is inevitable that we dissolve ourselves into our common interests. We as single, distinct soul will not last. Maybe on the familial level we’ll be remembered, but only for a few generations. What will last will be our joint effort, only what we leave as a combined legacy will have the power to resist the eroding forces of time. I don’t know my great, great, great grandfather. I don’t know my great, great grandfather. I don’t know my great grandfather. This is but two generations removed. What I know is what his generation did collectively, I know the force of industrialization mobilized by him and his temporal peers. To me, this suggests what Durkheim calls Représentations Collectives, or the collective consciousness. Our society is an independent entity. It exists apart from the individuals that make it up. It is a thing which moves and grows, albeit slowly, but carries with it the individual aims, goals, aspirations and dreams of the individuals grains. The waves of the collective wash over the sand. Some are carried with it; some are pushed further up shore. The society itself is what determines the length and breadth of the beach, of the world. Our society has choices, choices which are more important that individual choices, choices which have a far greater impact than individual choices. One person can’t decide to move our society to renewable energy. Only the whole can do such a thing. The collective must demand that it happen and in this way society is its own unique, discrete being. It determines the future. It moves the world. Individuals can only hope and work to push this being in a certain direction, but it must be the society which does the actual movement.
