Responsibilities of the Individual and Society

Some generalizations can be made about world history, namely about the ascendancy of the West since the late Middle Ages/ Early Modern period. The main factors cited for this generality are more or less true. For certain reasons: geography, culture, technology, politico-economic factors, military, the West arose and essentially took over the world and imposed its order upon the rest. There is truth to the master narrative. It happened.

Now certainly there are specific examples that counter indicate this master narrative, but these do not therefore disprove and render a fallacy the validity of the whole proposition. Any generalization will have an exception, but this certainly can’t mean that any generality is therefore false.

An example in point: the US Constitution, as a general statement it is pretty good; the rights of man and democratic form of government are stated well. Does the fact that it allowed slavery render it a total fallacy? On face value maybe yes, but in a developmental model proposed by Kim:

We as citizens, as members of society, bear responsibility for correcting the problems of the past; we are responsible not only to our own individual desires but also to the community, the society from which we stem. We live on the ground our ancestors made and we cannot simply forswear any responsibility because we weren’t there at the time. We have to take the good and the bad. Where there is trouble and injustice it is up to us to address it.

No one can be perfect. Society and individuals are works in progress. It is up to civic-minded people, to work in their spheres of influence within society, to continually better and address past wrongs, injustices and unfinished business, as part of the responsibility of a citizen, as human beings in any society.

It follows also that society and government have a responsibility to citizens. Government must work towards the well being of the citizens just as citizens have a responsibility to better society. To think it all must stacked one way, that the burden of responsibility falls only on individuals or only on society, that indicates there are ideological pressures at stake. For example at the extreme end of individualism is libertarianism and at the extreme end of socialism is communism. A lot of political hot air is wasted on false polemic struggles, as if society or individuals could somehow exist separately. It is obvious that the business of life is transacted in the grey tones and not black and white.

What Kim and I advocate here is a balanced approach where individual volition and social structures are both seen as integral parts of the whole, and that all works together for the good.