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From Random Thoughts blog, 22 January 2006.
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The relation between the individual and society is an organic and dialectical relation, it is not a relation between 2 separate entities but rather a relation like the relation between the human cells and the human organic structure.
Choices of individuals, the inter-individual relations creates the social dynamic, and the social dynamic sets the condition that an individual live within, so society is affected by the choices of individuals as much as the choices of individuals are affected by society.
The rhetoric that lets that individuals dictate their own history or future, without taking into consideration the role of society in shaping such history and future, is in itself contradictory because individuals can not exist as a self conscious individual without its presence within the existing social conditions and constructs.
The self development relies mainly on the existence of the self within society, individuals acquire language/methods of expression and their self consciousness within the realm of society; individuals are not free from free from the dictation of the social development and realization, societal progression and development as well is not free from the choices taken by individuals.
As this link presides over the social dynamic, thus the emancipation of society from one social context to another necessitates the emancipation of the individual that constitutes society itself, also the emancipation of the individual can not be realized unless there is a mass emancipation of society.
Political individualism is not but a fake realization of the individual, it creates a frame of progressive genuine ideas without any occurring changes within the social construct, it is progressive in comparison with the prevailing ideas in society, but at the same it is unable to relate to the rising contradictions within society, thus it develops as an intellectual ghetto which is able to take a position from the current social realm but unable to change it.
This break in communication between the formed intellectual autonomy and society as a whole requires from these individuals a defence mechanism, an identity that sets them different from the masses, and with the permanent break with society it develops itself as a lifestyle, and sometimes it develops into a puritan left afraid from its own contradictions, it struggles to stay uniform and enclosed.
Last updated: 3 November 2014