Yesterday, I was informed by a friend whom I hadn’t been in contact with for some time, that another friend who I hadn’t seen or heard from in an even longer time, had died. Worse actually; he had been murdered earlier this year. He was a very nice guy. I remember him as a gentle, harmless soul. He was just 38.
I don’t feel particularly comfortable ‘using’ this tragedy as a point of departure for an essay. But since (at least, as I see it) the society I grew up in, and the world generally seems to be increasingly pervaded with viciousness and stupidity, and where what were once considered the virtues of empathy, restraint and basic respect are despised and scorned, then perhaps I can be forgiven if I try to understand things using what I’ve learned, little though it may be. It seems to me that the adoration of the individual, really of the ego, and the vilification of any notions of collective good and responsibility has a lot to do with the savagery and cruelty extant in societies which could never be accused of lacking necessary resources.
“For just as egoism concentrates our interest on the particular phenomenon of our own individuality, and then knowledge always presents us with the innumerable perils that continually threaten this phenomenon, whereby anxiety and care become the keynote of our disposition, so the knowledge that every living thing is just as much our own inner being-in-itself as is our own person, extends our interest to all that lives; and in this way the heart is enlarged..... The egoist feels himself surrounded by strange and hostile phenomena, and all his hope rests on his own well-being. The good person lives in a world of friendly phenomena; the well-being of any of these is his own well-being.... although the knowledge of the lot of man generally does not make his disposition a cheerful one, the permanent knowledge of his own inner nature in everything that lives gives him a certain uniformity and even serenity of disposition”1
Furnished by nature, which does not make ‘mistakes’, with intelligence applicable to our modes of living, the only possible failure, on a species level, would be to renounce the mandate to live intelligently – not in any cold, calculating sense, but with intelligence fully enmeshed in our other aspects. Not that life would no longer fundamentally be suffering if we did succeed- though less is certainly better. But fail we do.
‘Individual’ means or indicates a plurality of the homogeneous. One talks of ‘individual’ in the context of there being others of such. We perceive a being or thing as individual in that it has a location and a continuity to distinguish it from others. Without spatial or temporal differentiation, there would be no perception of individuality. Aside from unconsciousness wherein the world knows no individuality whatsoever, in consciousness, without the forms of space, time, and causality all that would appear would be a continuous surface of fluctuating forms, what Schopenhauer called the “adequate objectivity” of the inner being of the world. This is perhaps what animal consciousness is like. “Individual” should be distinguished from “self” in that “self” means inner nature, or essence, which is not individual (though not plural either).
In a sense then, individuality is a derivative of, a lesser reality than, shared nature. Inwardly, the deeper we go, the further away from outwardly oriented consciousness and the forms of knowing- that is, firstly within the dichotomy of subject/object, then, within time and space- the less individual is our being. Individuality is therefore something relevant to the world of outwardly directed consciousness, along with intelligence.
Intelligence would incline us to recognise the social nature of the species, the mutual dependency or interdependence of human beings along with recognising the common necessities for our living, and the innate abilities we have to cooperate and organise. More than that, there is also the affective consciousness to which empathy is related, and with empathy, notions of justice. There is an intrinsic unity between individuality and collectivity. Judgements as to the failure or success of one imply something about the other. An individual cannot but fail if the collective organisation is unjust, and the organisation of the collective is predicated on the justice of individuals.
It may have been all so much easier before we developed as intelligent beings. However, and despite the misuses of our intelligence, and insofar as we are within the world of waking consciousness, of phenomena, here we are with our innate abilities to act intelligently and with empathy, in other words, to be just.
Arthur Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1”
I know what it is to have to deal with the impact of murder, the event, the fallout, especially of one who was held close in the heart.
It helped me, just a little bit, to write about it. But there is so much that seems impossible to render in words, or even images. It is beyond my ability to articulate, to describe how this event changes absolutely everything.
I believe that there is a fated, destined link that is strong with some, more so than with others. I think it lives somewhere below our awareness. When this cord is released it creates a wave way deeper than we can even acknowledge.
Those of us who are left standing have to discover our own way for riding that wave, and not being taken down by it.
Best wishes.
I’m sad to hear of your friend’s cruel death. There is no way of reasoning why we humans can’t be universally just and use our intelligence for good. It wouldn’t take much to shift the balance.