COLLECTIVISM VS INDIVIDUALISM: Humanity's Greatest Struggle

By YouveBeenGreeked | Some Random Thoughts. | 5 Mar 2025

What's more important: the individual or the group? Is it more important to judge and act upon the issues of people based upon their individual needs or their collective, shared needs? Is the individual tree more important than the concept of the forest?

It may not seem much, but this question had been debated over by philosophers for literally thousands of years, and at its core, it is one of the greatest sources of conflict in human history. Democracies and republics that value the individual voice have warred for millennia against the collectivist monarchies and dictatorships.

To provide some context, I'll delve once again into my Greek history specialty (what, you didn't think I couldn't NOT mention the ancient Greeks, right?) to provide the best philosophical example of the debate of collectivism VS individualism: Plato and Aristotle.

Born around 425 BC, Plato grew up in Athens during the greatest war the Greek mainland had ever seen, a topic I can't seem to finish talking about to save my life: the Peloponnesian War, lasting from 431 to 404 BC. Democratic, open-society Athens took on the monarchical, closed-off Sparta, and after 27 years of fighting, spoiler alert... Sparta won... yep, pretty hard to take on those Spartan hoplites.

In the war's aftermath, Sparta imposed a tyranny on Athens; the city was ruled for the best part of a year by the Thirty Tyrants. This oligarchy targeted political opponents and those who still supported democracy, resulting in the death of around 5% of Athens's population - an estimated 1,500 people were killed in 8 months. The Thirty were keen to gain allies from within Athenian society who could aid them in their quest to brutalise Athens and its population. Among their targets to bring into their fold was a veteran of the Peloponnesian War, renowned know-it-all Socrates.

After his service during the war, Socrates turned full attention to philosophy, famously wandering the streets of Athens and openly confronting people on a range of issues from politics to logic and reason. He was known for his bad looks, wandering the streets bare footed with his bulging eyes, large ears and big nostrils. He justified these looks by saying that looks don't matter, and that his bulging eyes could see more, and his large ears and nose meant he could hear and smell more than other people, therefore concluding that his "bad" looks made him better than others. Famously, he stated,

The Oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone of all the Greeks know that I know nothing.

In short, he humbled himself by saying that, in relation to all there is to know, he knew practically nothing. By extent, he also stated that he didn't know how the perfect society should be run - how could he, if he didn't know what the price of grain should be, or how to construct a temple, or manage trade relations with other societies? He pushed the idea of questioning EVERYTHING, no matter what it was.

A man of this wisdom was sought heavily by the Thirty Tyrants. Although he never joined them, a student of Socrates, Critias, ended up leading the Thirty in their tyranny over Athens, with Critias becoming known by historians as "the first Robespierre", referencing the French Revolution. After 8 months, the Thirty were overthrown by a radical democratic party in Athens, led by the war veteran Thrasybullus. While the Spartans were overthrown, the "democracy" that emerged was very much a "out of the fire, into the frying pan", as more political oppositions were targeted unfairly and put on trial, many of them sentenced to death.

Among them was Socrates. Since Critias and many of the Thirty Tyrants were former students of Socrates, Socrates was associated with the oligarchs, thus put on trial and in 399 BC, he was forced to drink hemlock, and died.

Watching the trial was another of Socrates' students: Plato. There seems to have been a deep connection between the two, with Plato greatly admiring his tutor. His life after the tumultuous thirty-plus years Athens had experienced during and after the war meant Plato knew nothing of peace and certainty in life - his world was never grounded like he wished it to be.

He came to travel the Greek Mediterranean, ending up in Sicily in the court of Dion of Syracuse, who sought to replace his brother Dionysius on the throne. When the tyrant turned against Plato, Plato was threatened with death, but sold instead into slavery, only to be bought for twenty silver pieces by another philosopher, soon being allowed to return to Athens. He would be later recalled to Syracuse to tutor Dion's son Dionysius II. Accepting of his teachings at first, Dionysius soon grew suspicious of Plato's motives, holding him in Syracuse against his will for a while. Eventually Plato was able to leave and return to Athens for good, where he would come to found his famous Academy, which would remain in operation in one form or another until the sixth century AD - over 900 years.

In summary, his life had never been stable, certain or devoid of some kind of looming threat of death or enslavement. He'd witnessed his once powerful home state turn to tyranny and death, his people radicalised against themselves, his beloved mentor put to death, and he himself ended up enslaved, bought and threatened once again on foreign soil, despite friendly invitation. What he needed in life was something to make him feel grounded and certain of himself, and his philosophy ended up providing just that: the theory of the forms.

Context over. What is the theory of the forms?

The theory of the forms was Plato's answer to how to find certainty in life. Plato envisioned a realm of perfect forms; for instance, in our realm or reality, we have chairs of all different comforts, sizes and heights, but in Plato's realm of forms, there was The Perfect Chair, of which all chairs in our world derive from. Where our world has many different trees, Plato's perfect realm had the perfect tree from which all of our trees derive from. As innocent as this sounds at first, his realm also included the perfect person, and the perfect society, and with his dealings in politics and as a student of the famous Socrates, Plato soon developed a following.

His theory of the perfect society resulted in his works, "The Republic" and "The Laws". In summary, "The Republic" was his utopian vision of a city, whereas "The Laws" is his more grounded approach to making it reality. I have a copy of the works myself, and, well... his ideal society has 5,040 citizens, a number divisible by every number from 1 to 12 (except 11) to make dividing the population into equal sizes easier to make administration and censors easier. He based his society on the analogies of the tripartite structure of the body and the soul: the stomach and the appetite, the chest and the spirit, and the head and reason. He implemented this into his structuring of the perfect city:

The Bronze Class were the Workers, or the productives. These were the farmers, labourers and merchants who formed the vast majority of the city' population.
The Silver Class were the Warriors. These were the "police" and army who were adventurous, strong and brave.
The Gold Class were the Governors, Plato's Philosopher-Kings. These were the most intelligent and rational, like, for instance, himself.

All newborn children were to be given immediately to the state for raising by nurses, assigned to their work posts as the state saw fit once they became adults. The only ones with freedoms were the philosopher-kings - everyone else was deemed a slave. As a result, parents were not allowed to know who their own children were, which Plato admits will be worth it if women saw everyone as their children, despite the high chance of incestuous relationships this would breed, which he too acknowledged.

It's worth noting that Plato himself was never a parent, and was in fact gay.

Every household - 5,040 in total - was to be allotted 2 plots of land: one at home and one close to the city centre. The plots were not allowed to be transferred from the holder's family, meaning there would be no improvement in agriculture. Plato's intention was to ensure that no-one became any richer than anyone else, or to prevent anyone from becoming too poor, whether they like it or not. Property was to be commonly owned by everyone, and any shareholders had to make public contributions. Women were forbidden from owning property, but could hold political power and enter the army - very unusual in ancient Greece.

Nobody, male or female, should be left without control, nor should anyone, whether at work or in play, grow habituated in mind to acting alone and on their own initiative, but he should live always, both in war and peace, with his eyes fixed constantly on his commanders and following his lead.

No free movement was permitted to ensure no outside ideas corrupted his citizens, and all citizens were under the control of the state:

If... such an inspector appears to be corrupted on his return, in spite of his pretensions of wisdom, he shall be forbidden to associate with anyone, young or old; wherein, if he obeys the magistrates, he shall live as a private person, but if not, he shall be put to death.

His goal with his theorised utopia was to produce as many perfect philosopher-kings as possible. Their wills and desires are united via a love of wisdom and acting in accordance with it. Plato came to favour tyrannies, since only one person could mess up in a tyranny, as opposed to a democracy, in which anyone can be complicit. His theory was that all societies will end up as tyrannies:

1. ARISTOCRACY - rule by the best, to
2. TIMOCRACY - rule by the honourable, to
3. OLIGARCHY - rule by the few, to
4. DEMOCRACY - rule by the people, to
5. TYRANNY - rule by ONE.

Plato argued that democracies breed people who demand more and more liberty, collapsing legitimate authority and breaking down law and order altogether, from which a class of "idle spendthrifts" emerge to destroy the state altogether. The workers among them deprive the rich of their estates and give them to the people, while taking a larger amount for themselves. While the rich strive to defend their property, everyone else find a champion among them. Cheered on, this champion becomes the new TYRANT.

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy - the truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government.

This quote is associated with Socrates, in Plato's work, as Socrates himself never wrote anything down.

I think, however, that Socrates would never support such systems of government pushed by Plato; Plato dictates in his writings how the best form of society should function, which contrasts with Socrates stating that he knew nothing - he would never have claimed to know how other people and societies should function.

It's easy to see therefore how Plato was idolised later by men like Karl Marx and Mussolini.

Plato's student, Aristotle, opposed Plato, forging a far more individualist philosophy. While they were friends for 20 years, Aristotle fell out of favour with Plato after his death, when Plato did not leave his Academy under Aristotle's directory, given their philosophical disagreements.

Aristotle would instead return to his native home in Macedonia, being accepted into the court of the King, Philip II, to tutor his son, the soon-to-be Alexander III, later known famously as Alexander the Great. So yes, Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great - quite a tutor-lineage.

During Alexander's conquests of the Eastern Persian Empire, the king sent specimens back home to Aristotle to study. The philosopher spent his remaining years tutoring in Athens at the Lyceum, his own private school, which taught mathematics, sciences, politics, oratory and philosophy, the student's works being collected and forging one of the first great libraries in history.

After Alexander's death, the pro-Macedonian government was overthrown, resulting in Aristotle being charged with impiety, like his tutor's tutor Socrates once was. He thus refused Athens to sin against philosophy twice, fleeing the city to the island of Euboea, until his death the following year. His works were hidden, but revived centuries later. His works were preserved and used by scholars throughout the late Roman Empire and into the Islamic World.

Thinkers like Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonodes revived his works due to their logical and scientific method. His works were very prominent in pushing forward the Islamic Golden Age. Later thinkers like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas introduced the western world - where his works were unknown during the majority of the European Middle Ages - to Aristotle, and the mixing of ancient Greek philosophy and Christian theology became the foundation for the West. His main argument in his work was his direct opposition to Plato's idea of the forms and collectivism.

Aristotle's surviving works are translations and edits originally by Roman writers, thus do not likely represent Aristotle's actual words, but are most likely work notes mostly by his several students. In total, his surviving work accounts to 1 million words - an estimated 20% of his total work. His works were based on empiricism, with all investigations beginning with sense data and evidence. Not being an atheist, he believed in an immaterial God that did not control the universe, but could affect it. He believed vehemently in rational thinking, calling it true perfection. He provided methodology, not answers, in stark contrast to Plato who provided answers, with minimal methodology.

... I've rambled quite a lot about Greeks. Happens to me a lot...

In summary, Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy have been at the roots of conflicts throughout history, right up to the modern capitalist society of America to the communist societies of the USSR and China. Where one side values (or seems to value) free-market capitalism and individualism, one side values (or seems to value) communally-owned goods and collectivism. It is a struggle that has been at the heart of most conflicts in human history since its inception.

My humble opinion? INDIVIDUALISM, ALWAYS.

You cannot have the concept of a forest without the individual trees.
You cannot have the concept of a group of people collected into the state without the individual people that make up that collective.
And you cannot have collectivised states and nations without individuals comprising that communist society.

But you can have the individuals without the collectives: you can have an individual tree without there being the concept of a forest. One can exist without the other, but not the other way around.

Every person is an individual, and I suppose I'm touching on my previous point from my previous article about reparations, in which I claimed it was important to not treat people as collectives like skin colour in order to tax them in the form of reparations: we are all individuals, and no society, tyrant, dictator, king, queen, emperor, empress or oligarch has the right to impose one rule on anyone else when we are all different. Yes, we are all largely the same functionally, but we all have our own individual needs.

So yeah, in summary, sue me, but I think Plato is a shit philosopher.

Bet ya didn't expect that.

Anyway, go touch grass - or yer legs will fall off.

Ciao.