No Man Is an Island…

While people are autonomous intelligences, they do not exist in isolation. People normally live together in groups of various sizes and kinds - families, local communities, affinity groups, and so forth, up to nations comprising millions of people. There are very few hermits.

In fact, people very likely lived together in groups long before they were people: Other primates largely live in groups, as do many other mammals, and even birds. So did other humanoid species, like the Neanderthals. And so, in all probability, did our biological ancestors. People therefore have a widespread inclination to ally themselves with one or more groups, and to establish quite powerful emotional ties to them, occasionally even to the extreme of sacrificing their own lives; we seem to be programed that way.

Many of these groups exist before, during and after the memberships of individuals in them, and often their entire lifespans. Groups have identities, and often purposes, beyond those of the individuals composing them. 

So it is reasonable to raise the question of which takes precedence, the groups, or the individuals that compose them? There are many assertions, even entire philosophies and systems of law,  based on the premise that the groups come first. Wars, some of which have killed millions of individual people, have been fought over group primacy. In fact, one could argue that all wars have been fought over which group will rule, and over whom and what they would have dominion.

So, which has pride of place? The individual, or the group, granting that both occur together and are intertwined? Which is figure and which is ground?

Here is a simple thought experiment: If all groups in existence magically disappeared, what would happen to the individuals; and if instead all individuals disappeared, what would happen to the groups? 

Quite obviously, if the groups disappeared, individuals would immediately set about creating new ones, which might or might not be reconstitutions of those that disappeared. Equally obviously, if it were the individuals who disappeared, there would be no groups, for there would be no one to replace them. Groups cannot exist independently of the individuals comprising them. In reality, only the individuals physically exist; their groups are mental constructs in people’s minds. A mathematician would say that the individual is the independent variable, and the group is the dependent variable.

Put as plainly as possible: groups exist for the benefit of the people comprising them, not the other way around.