It is quite true that constructive ideas come from individuals, not from groups. However, without the assistance of a group, no individual will ever make any significant impact on the planet by themselves.
This was a difficult realization for me to come to. I’m pretty smart and I’d like to think that I can do some good things for the world by myself. But every time I’ve gone off on a kick of individuality and decided that I was just going to handle some whole scene by myself, most of the time I failed. On smaller things, such as making major changes within a group I belonged to, I was successful. But on changes to things on the scope of a planet or many many groups, when I tried to do it all by myself without any support from anybody, I failed–or at least, I didn’t have the impact that I wanted.
In my life, I’ve read a lot of fantasy novels–boy gets magic powers, boy fights off evil, the world is saved. But in my life, I’ve come to realize that the most fantastic and untrue viewpoint on those stores isn’t “boy gets magic powers.” I mean, that could happen, one way or another, maybe even with technology we can’t imagine now. The most unlikely part is “boy saves world all by himself.” That is a fantasy. Nobody saves the world by themselves. And if you think about it, in the best books, the magic boy or girl almost always does have some huge organization backing him or her up.
So if you think that groups are bad and nobody should ever be in any kind of organization or anything whatsoever, I fully respect your viewpoint. You’re entitled to it. But if you _also_ are a person who wants to change the world, you’d better come fast to the realization that you’re NOT going to do it all by yourself, get over whatever objection to groups that you have, and become a part of (or lead, or form) the most effective group around that’s doing something about the situation you want to resolve.
It’s not about ideologies or holding the group above the individual. That’s a lie. The individual IS the creative force from which all good things flow.
It’s about BEING EFFECTIVE. If you hate being effective so much that you’d rather just take on the world all by your lonesome and fail, good for you. But that’s not for me. At least, not anymore!
Max Kanat-Alexander 