Quite a few of us have, -if my local discussions and my own experience are typical, -noticed over the last months that, despite the breath-taking evil that is attacking mankind, for we who are being attacked it has been a time when we have been flung back on to our individual resources. The resulting sometimes painful self-reflection and personal questioning of events has brought with it a raised level of awareness that is, I believe, wholly beneficial and has changed the way we see the world.
Group-consciousness – the collective – is a fatal chimera when it is, as it has been on so many horrific occasions in the last century, used to pump concepts into the minds of the unwary. From Stalin and Pol Pot to BLM and the Virus Cult is no distance at all. The legions of the collective, who glow with acquired virtue by adopting these slogans – for such indeed is identity politics – may actually be supporting the very opposite of what they believe, but have not taken the personal responsiibility of holding what they propound up to the light of their own intellects. Sentiment, dependence on others and covert repression feature largely. The Group does not exist, save as a tool of manipulation and deceit, and has no legitimacy as a personality. It is the very opposite experience to the raised level of awareness I refer to above. It did bad things for the Kulaks, and it will do bad things for us.
The only group consciousness founded in reality is the coming together of sovereign individuals, which is a very different matter.
In the seventy years of material prosperity we have known in the West, untroubled by wars save in far-away places, the idea that what happened before to “all those poor people” seems to very many to have no relation to life as we experience it today. That is a perilous error.
It is only by facing our duty and responsibility of thought and by each pursuing self-reflection and inquiry, and rejecting evil that we have the opportunity to help each other and those who come after us.
