Climate and environment; gun controls; use of technology; private wealth and public needs. These are some of the major issues that bedevil Americans these days. With the exception of gun controls, the rest are of major concern to the world as well. All these issues have one common denominator: the rights of the individual versus the rights of the society. How we decide to resolve these issues in the near future and beyond depends on which side we decide to come down on this very old conundrum, that is, the balance between the interests of the unit, i.e., the individual, and those of the collective, i.e., the society or its political expression, the state.
Within the Western world, this question has been debated since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Their ideas have been refined, revised, expanded and subtracted by Western scholars and philosophers over the intervening centuries without however coming to a solid guiding conclusion.* In the words of a writer, when it comes to the individual versus the society, we are all either Platonists or Aristotelians. Outside the Western world, the same question has been raised but it has been resolved more decidedly in favor of the interests of society. Under the influence of Confucius and the imperative of social harmony, China, Japan and other East Asian societies prioritize the interests of society, and by extension those of the state, over those of the individual. India and the Muslim world also put more value to traditional secular and religious customs and norms that keep individual discretion circumscribed.
So, what does it mean to say we are Platonists or Aristotelians. For Platonists, each one of us attains goodness and excellence if we serve the society in the position we can perform best: as guardians, if we have leadership talents; as warriors, if we have bravery and physical strength; as artisans, if we have talents for business and industry. As individuals we excel when we take our best-suited station in life and thus help our state to excel.
For Aristotelians, the individual attains goodness and excellence when each one of us fulfills his or her human potential, a potential the way we see it and actualize so that we live happy lives in the world as is. To this end, the state ought to offer individuals the means and opportunities to actualize this potential.
Both thought systems value the quality of society and state. And both consider each individual to be critical for the success of society or state. In Plato’s society, however, the individual has a more prescribed mission. In Aristotle’s, the individual is more master of his or her course in life. Both, nonetheless, call on individuals to act as responsible and virtuous citizens that care about the collective good.
It is not difficult to understand, even from the above brief description, that Platonists are willing to live in more ordered societies, societies with a top down organizational design. Aristotelians, on the other hand, prefer to live in less rigid societies that follow a bottom up organizational design. Plato’s societies and states have the advantage of social cohesiveness and efficiency. However, too much of that and Plato’s model can lead to rigid dogmatism and the stifling of individual creativity and expression. Aristotle’s system can avoid that, but too much of it and it can degenerate down to individual aggrandizement and materialism.
The modern fields of evolutionary psychology and sociology confirm that the human species is selected by nature to live as a being with individual identity and rights to friendship, love and mating within groups that rely on cooperation, as well as learning and teaching from each other in order to survive. This set of traits is what Nicholas Christakis of Yale U. calls the social suite.** Research on involuntary communities (like those resulting from shipwrecks) as well as voluntary and experimental communities shows that to restrict too much the individual’s rights or the cooperation among the members of a community most often leads to its collapse.
What makes the whole question of individual versus society so difficult is none else but the heavy emotionality and the fears, rational or not, that surround its polar outcomes. Those who believe that societies ought to be the sum total of individual rights no matter what will not easily surrender to the calls for collective action at the expense of individual rights. And those who believe society is more than the sum total of its members’ rights and that by protecting its interests enhances individual welfare will not stop calling for collective solutions.
Societies have oscillated between the two polar ends of individualism and social imperative. America, for example, was founded on the rights of the individual for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” When, however, economic disintegration threatened the state, Roosevelt did not hesitate to embark on the New Deal which introduced social welfare institutions, like Social Security, and extensive regulations. Modern Communist China was founded by putting the interests of a collectivist state ahead of the interests of the individual. But by 1980 China was facing dire economic crises. So, Deng Xiaoping made the bold move to loosen individual rights to confront the crisis. The American case was one of moving from unfettered individual rights to greater social solidarity. That of China was a case of moving from rigid economic order toward individual economic freedom. Both moves faced ferocious criticism and resistance. Herbert Hoover decried Roosevelt’s New Deal as socialist and fascistic. Deng’s economic liberalization also faced criticism by politicians of the old guard.
These and other examples suggest that to reach a better balance between the rights of individuals and society, some crisis is necessary to compel citizens to overcome their emotional and ideological attachment to one or the other polar end. So, the question then is: what kind of crisis do we need to bear before we decide to do something about gun violence; or about climate and the environment; or about the impact of technology on our lives; or excessive private wealth and neglected public goods?
* Arthur Herman, The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization, 2014.
** Nicholas Christakis, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of A Good Society, 2019.
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