Individual vs. Society

It’s been two weeks since the start of Lent, and it seems like the theme of the individual vs. society has come up in almost every movie I’ve seen. We’re even discussing it in little groups at school.

It’s come up in Huck Finn: Twain portrays Huck as the individual and Tom as society. It’s come up in A Clockwork Orange, which I saw yesterday: the main character evaded school and went off on his own freely, stealing and raping women. He went to prison and I won’t include the details so I don’t ruin the plot. I think it’s even in the Bible. Why did God create one man and one woman, rather than a society?

Here’s the bottom line (this is our minor thesis):

Society is detrimental to an individual’s moral development and it is nearly impossible to escape its grasps.

Now, we’re still working on it, but we think that it’s true, for the most part.

I’ve begun to notice that people who are heavily influenced by society are very close-minded. Sometimes I stop thinking in the hallways to listen to people chitchat; I’m curious sometimes (or people just like to scream in my ears when they talk). 9 of 10 times I’ve done this, the topic has been video games. This is really hypocritical, coming from me, but… don’t you guys have anything else to talk about? Talk about a test. Talk about the effect of satire in Huck Finn. Talk about how an advertisement you saw was so ridiculously misinformed, it made you guffaw. Talk about ideas you came up with concerning civil rights or politics.

No. Scratch all of that.

Don’t talk. Think.

Think about how society has separated the intellectuals from the ordinary. How each decided to separate from the other, and how it has affected our society.

I think the longest word I heard today was “dichotomy.”  And it wasn’t even used correctly.

Society, conformity, collaboration.

Evil.