Collection: The Beat Philosopher

Cross-Post: The Modern Existentialist Project

Format: Philosophy Discussion

Author: Melissa Nadia Viviana

Date: November 24, 2024

Tags: Fascism, Tech Overlords, Boycotts, Consumer Ethics

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There are no schools of thought that have obsessed over the benefits of being an individual vs the benefits of being in a group more than the Existentialists & Transcendentalists.

The Danish, Christian Existentialist, Søren Kierkegaard, famously said,

"Had I to carve an inscription on my tombstone, I would ask for none other than 'The Individual.'"

And the American, Christian Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment."

Both of these Christians were unique in that they felt that God was something to be found within them - apart from the Church and apart from group faith. Emerson found it in nature. Kierkegaard found it in... well - the confrontation of his own anxiety.

Friedrich Nietzsche wasn't a Christian at all - in fact, he infamously regarded the concept of God to be dead and no longer useful in the 19th century.

But he's still lumped together in a category with Søren Kierkegaard, Russian Novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and many post-war, French Philosophers - like Jean-Paul Sartre because despite having unique views of the world... what they all had in common was a belief that the answers we seek lay within us.

Essentially, that individualism saves us from the mediocrity of the crowd.

In 'The Revolt of the Masses,' Spanish Existentialist, José Ortega y Gasset gives a scathing review of 'the mass man' - a conformist who is uninterested in intellectual or cultural growth. He believed 'the mass man' wasn't just a social class below us––but a class of apathy and disinterest in their own personal transcendence.

Ortega y Gasset was frustrated with the idea that because the ‘mass man’ is unwilling to take responsibility and improve their individual self - the majority rule could come from the most mediocre among us. That even without becoming cultured or educated - or by working to transcend themselves - by size, alone, the mass group can still grow into a powerful monolith that can control society as a headless herd.

These mass society collectives –– which have no interest in personal growth and seek only to adopt the views of the majority, without question, create a tyranny of the mediocre on the best of days. And a tyranny of the misled and manipulated on the worst of days.

Why wouldn't we want to be led by not just the most intelligent humans in society, but also those who are the most transcended versions of their individual selves? Those who have grown into a cultured version of themselves.

Sociologists have gone further to discuss not just the mediocrity of the crowd, but the dangers of it. By coining phrases like "groupthink" or "mob mentality," they've expanded on how groups of people can willingly be manipulated by preferring to "get along" and "fit in" with even irrational and dangerous views.

Mobs can often be willing to commit violence in the name of something they barely understand or can articulate––and all they really seek from the group is to find security amongst conformity. To belong and fit in––even with a dangerous and irrational majority.

But to contrast these views, I've often held the theory that human genetics has a natural ratio similar to animal packs: in that it spits out conformists at a higher rate than individualists for good reason.

In a wolf pack, there can't be 20 alphas. Any pup that grows up to be an alpha will be pushed out of the pack and must start their own group. Elephants and horses are similar. A horse herd might have only 1 alpha but their herds can be as large as 100.

It stands to reason that the harmony of the pack depends on a genetic ratio of 1 or 2 alphas amongst many "followers."

While Existentialists and Transcendentalists have been urging people to go within and break from the group consciousnesses for centuries, it's prudent to ask if, genetically speaking, there's even any sense in making EVERYBODY become an individual.

Because a group of totally autonomous individuals has no potential to work together, to agree on anything, to keep each other safe, and to thrive.

Not even The Existentialists & Transcendentalists, themselves, could or would have been able to get along in a single pack.

What are the dangers of group consciousness? How are herds of "unthinking & unquestioning" individuals manipulated in society?

1. Is "majority rule" dangerous to the progress of society –– for example, if herds are full of placid followers with no interest in growth or self-transcendence? Are we then ruled by the most mediocre among us?

2. Do you believe the herd mentality is a natural genetic phenomenon that crops up in human beings at a higher rate than the "individualists" or “alphas” precisely to keep humans working and surviving together?

3. Can societies filled with individualists ever work? Or do we need "conformists" and "followers" to be the glue that holds a society together, functionally?

4. Are herds, by definition, mediocre and placid? Or can we provide education and stimulation that bring transcendence and growth to the group too?

And lastly;

6. Can the ‘mass man’ be enlightened when he’s in a group? Or is the journey of enlightenment only and always something an individual must undertake beyond the group?

For example, as Emerson did by going within nature? And are we able to only 'rejoin' the enlightened group once that individual journey has been taken?

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