Have you ever met the Collective?

Dear Collective

We tend to grant it a material existence, to endow it with a responsibility to us. A bit like Gaia, the mother planet. We gladly confuse the Collective with the government, or one of its ministries, or even with the imprecise sphere of people of power: their mission would be to make society function properly thanks to their exceptional means. No, the Collective is neither a material entity, nor the government (which only represents it), nor the rich and powerful people (who mission themselves for their own interests before those of others).

The Collective exists only as a set of its tiny fractions present in each of our minds. Everyone is an individual and part of humanity, indissolubly. It is impossible to claim pure individuation. Even the most isolated hermit impacts the ecosystem. Even the suicidal person impacts his loved ones. The collectivist part is the recognition of belonging to a global society. Without it, we have no passport to enter. Nothing to ask it for either. Do you think you can do it? Really live without any material or virtual relationship with the rest of the world before talking about it.

The existence of the parasite

Thus, bringing the Collective to life in our minds is not optional. It is imperative. The one who does not participate in its maintenance is not ‘individual’ but parasite. Far from being autonomous he/she is a burden for others. A child. Many people today place themselves in the situation of dependent children, asking for the assistance of the Collective, without participating in the slightest. They feel that existing is enough.

Individual existence, the egalitarian rights it provides, have been clearly valued over the last century. Extraordinary progress! Nevertheless, we must understand this democratic revolution in its completeness: “egalitarian” rights imply an equal effort to make the collective live. Rights are not only “right to” but also “duty”. How could a company distribute rights if not everyone contributes to running it?

Democratic collapse

The contemporary democratic drift is to allow a community of anarchists more concerned with assistance than independence to expand. Mom-State owes everything but we owe her nothing. To their credit: some have disproportionately greater financial means to fulfill their duty. But how does this exempt others from theirs? Why would some be exempt, which effectively puts them out of social exchanges and calls into question their rights?

If the Collective is only the set of all its parcels in our minds, each spirit that ceases to host it weakens it. Today its thinness is obvious. Regardless of the elected government, the weakness of its power is evident. It represents the authority of a Collective… in a state of collapse. We are calling for an effective policy when we have taken away the principle that it can act. The slump of the Collective comes from the fact that most of us have stopped feeding it.

To revive it is, for everyone, to ask themselves a simple question: “What am I doing for others today?». I’m not talking about the other: “What do they owe me?». You already know it…

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