Christopher Hitchens - The Portable Atheist - Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

The article in question is headed, “Is the Individual Doomed?” and the answer is that he is if Monism prevails. With Christianity, we are told, the individual is everything; with Monism the individual is nothing. The Christian view of the individual acts as a powerful incentive to progress; the Monistic view “is utterly devoid of the dynamic which can generate any great social reform.” While the conception of humanity as an organic structure in which the individual is ultimately merged is brushed aside in the following:

The smallest and forlornest actual slum baby appeals to our sympathy immeasurably more than a vast, dim, aggregate of indistinguishable items called the Race, for we have actually met the slum baby, and we have never met—and what is more, we never shall meet—the Race…. No matter by how many times we multiply nothing, the result is still—nothing…. If we wish to be social reformers in earnest, we must take care of the individual and the race will take care of itself.

That the concrete example of a suffering slum baby appeals to us more than an abstract proposition about the race is true; but instead of this proving the case, it is, as will be seen later, dependent upon the fact of race, and is only an illustration of its influence. And to say that we must take care of the individual if we wish to take care of the race is a mere ipse dixit , since the question at issue is whether or not we are best promoting the interests of the individual when we keep our mind steadily on the question of race welfare. Finally, when we are told that the conception of man as a mere cell in the social tissue, an item in the long story of human progress is “devoid of the dynamic which can generate any social reform,” the reply is that no other factor has shown itself of such inspiring force with social reformers. One need go no further back than the French Revolution of 1789—one of the most “dynamic” events of modern history—to prove this. The schools of St. Simon, Owen, Fourier, with the modern development of Socialism on its higher side, are all permeated by a conception of human development that we are told is fatal to social progress. In fact it is next to impossible to point to a great social movement that has not been inspired by the conception of humanity as a slowly developing organism from which the individual springs, and in which the individual is ultimately merged.

Our preacher may be correct in saying that with Christianity the individual is everything; he is quite wrong in saying that with Monism the individual is nothing. The question is ultimately one of the nature and function of the individual, and to assume that unless we assert that he is independent of the social structure we are destroying him is quite beside the point. We do not annihilate the earth by showing its place in the solar system; we do not annihilate the cell by showing its place in the organism; nor do we destroy the individual by showing him to be a cell in the social tissue. On the contrary, it is only when man is thought of in this sense that we really begin to form a genuine conception of individuality.

One of the errors of Christianity has been to make constant appeals to the individual without considering those conditions of which individual life is the expression. It has preached purity of thought and deed while leaving untouched conditions that make purity of life an impossibility. It has taught morality without realizing that morality is not something that is grafted on life, but something that springs from social life and is conditioned in its expression by the prevailing social conditions. All the ethical failures and extravagances of moral teaching that dog the history of Christianity are attributable to this initial error. It may be quite correct to say the Christian teaching is that we must look to the individual and leave the race to attend to itself; but it is none the less a mistaken teaching. For you can only permanently affect the individual through a modification of those conditions that are summed up in the phrase “social environment.” I do not mean here an environment that covers only the material conditions of existence, but include all those mental forces that play so large a part in moulding the life of each of us. If man is to be morally, mentally, and physically healthy, he must live in an environment which permits health in all these directions. Otherwise we may appeal to the individual as long as we choose; our appeal even in the most favourable of circumstances, will only be in the nature of a stimulant, and like all such will be of a temporary nature only. Doctors, scientists, sociologists, all shades of real thinkers, are fast realizing that it is the race problem that is the vital one, and this, not in the interests of an abstract entity called the Race, but in the best interests of the individual himself.

In thus contrasting the Monistic and the Christian view of the function of the individual, there is raised the old question of the relations of the individual to society. And although the limited influence of social conditions is admitted, the main position is that of a species of sociological atomism. Our preacher would agree with those writers who argue that society is a mere aggregate of individual human beings. On the other hand, one may submit that, while society is an aggregate of individuals, it is yet something more than is given in any number of individuals merely added together. The strength of an army is not the mere sum total of the strengths of the individual members composing it; it is that plus the addition of what results from combination. The product of a chemical compound is not to be discovered by adding together the properties or qualities of its constituents. Some quality is given in the combination not to be found in its constituent parts. And in the same way no amount of adding together of individuals can give us all that we find in a social structure. We cannot, try how we may, derive society from the individual. We can, as will be seen, derive the individual from society.

I am not claiming the existence of some mysterious social ego presiding over society, as theologians conceived a soul dominating the organism. My point is that just as I am made up of the various parts of my organism plus the combination of these parts, and that just as the relations between the parts are as real as the parts themselves, so there develops a social force which expresses the relations existing between all individuals, and which is as real as the individuals themselves. And this is strictly analogous to all that we know, scientifically, of other forces. The law of gravitation, the laws of heat, light, and sound are the expressions of a relation, and have no existence apart from the relations between atoms of matter. And it would be as absurd to deny the existence of gravitation, because it cannot be shown apart from matter, as it is to deny the existence of this social force, because we cannot separate it from the individuals that comprise society.

It is perfectly true that, apart from individuals, society has no existence, but it is equally true that, apart from society, the individual ceases to be. Society is no more an abstraction than is the individual. When we speak of society it is true that we are expressing the totality of individual actions, but it is also true that when we speak of the individual we are expressing the result of a whole complex of social forces. Take from the individual all that society gives him in the shape of language, beliefs, clothing, institutions, take away the relations existing between him and his fellows, and the individual, as we know him, has ceased to exist. One view of the case is certainly as true as the other; and when such opposing conclusions can be logically reached, it is highly probable that the truth lies between the two, or in a combination of both. The truth is that either aspect alone represents a one-sided view of the subject. Neither individual nor society can, or ought to be, considered separately. Both are aspects of the same fact. The individual is a concrete expression of social forces; society is an organism precisely because, like all organisms, one cannot understand aright any one of the parts without considering its relation to the whole, and because one cannot appreciate the whole without understanding the nature and function of each of the parts.