: Humanity is a collective organization no matter how much anyone wishes to deny it.This rings of authoritarianism, this does.
:It is this collective which has allowed the development of science, technology, and art.
No not really, by itself it achieves nothing individual efforts, the primary producers, the servants and their relationships with elites etc. have all had defining moments.
:The human collective is a resource every socialised human draws upon and contributes to in various ways. Some contributions enrich the collective, and some deteriate it. The collection of large amounts of wealth by individuals at the expense of the rest of the collective will eventually be reflected back at them by the diminshment of the collective.
Not in itself if they use their power and wealth to dominate and create waste etc. sure but not in itself.
:I, for one, do not care about my personal welfare. I spend my time trying to benefit the welfare of humanity and trust that it will take care of mine.
But what if they dont maybe you should create some personal wealth just in case. Altruism isnt boundless just as selfishness isnt boundless. It's foolish to say you dont care about your personal welfare, self-preservation is in our genetic code but maybe your seeking to score ideological points.
:When all human beings comprehend this interdependency perhaps we will be ready to ascend into heaven, or perhaps we will have already created it for ourselves.
This I can agree with.
:This cannot happen while we teach children the autonomy of the individual, that they can take care of themselves and even profit from the expense of others.
The autonomy of the individual is sacrosanct. I'm a socialist and believe that elite power adversely effects society but I understand that soicety equal measure aggregate of individuals and social construct. What have you got if the indivdual ceases to exist 1984, is that what you want? People empathising with political parties and insistutes instead of each other.
:Governments, religions, and corporations,especially, are usually corrupted by assuming the importance of specific individuals. The US government has its president, the so called leader of the free world, as if we needed a specific individual to lead us.
Good point.
:The catholic church has its pope, a folly that can be traced back to the deification of Jesus.
Jesus appointed the first Pope man and in this case leadership doesnt go a miss to often.
:From what I understand of the christian point of view, we are all the children of their god, therefore it is not reasonable to elevate Jesus or any other human to divine heights above us.
Right enough but JC was at once God he could fly and stuff.
:And as for corporations, they have their board of directors and ceo's who without the slightest twinge of conscience can fire thousands of loyal workers at a time while shifting production to areas where people will work for pennies an hour.
True enough.
: The significant tragedy, here, is that a relatively small group of individuals has a disproportionate influence on the actions of the collective without any concern for the collective. You should glance at www.dieoff.com for some details on ththis topic.
True enough but its better than Stalinism, hitlerism, marxism.
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: McSpotlight: Actually, it's strictly http://www.dieoff.org; dieoff.com works but is inaccurate; as the site is non-profit, it should be a .org domain; the .com domain was probably bought up to stop domain-name carpetbaggers.
None.
