Individual and Collective Error

There is a difference between an individual's error and a collective error. On the individual level, nature makes allowances for growth and error. All children are exempted from the rule of a moral consciousness to the exact degree of their development. Actually, the same rule applies to everyone. We cannot be guilty for something we are totally unaware of. Error on a collective level, however, is that there is ever an act, promoted or performed, by collective man that is not a product of deliberate conscious will.

Therefore, all acts performed by the collective, whether such act be by word, deed, or action, are under the judgment of a moral conscious. Interestingly, the world at large thinks just the opposite. For the most part it is always the individual who is solely judged in today's world, regardless as to whether or not the collective had a part in whatever the individual was or is being judged for. For example, a child born into an environment where drugs are commonplace may not have even known anyone who did not use drugs; yet, the use of drugs may be against the law in the greater environment that surrounds the child's. Morally, who is responsible for the child's use of drugs, and who has the right to judge? Is the child guilty for using the drugs, or are the police guilty for not having prevented the drugs from being rampant in his environment? Or, are they both guilty, the child and the police? For sure, there are interesting as well as perplexing questions. They are not beyond the individual's scope of understanding, though; and in the final stages of our development, we as individuals are held responsible to understand.

There are practical reasons why man, as a collective group, needs to be responsible for his acts to a higher degree than individual man; one being the potential for danger. When a group, or collective body, makes an error or promotes a course of action that is destructive in nature, the effects upon mankind and the structure of life are far greater than the effects resulting from the actions of an individual.

Still, there is a difference between collective error and individual error. The ancients understood this. It is interesting to note that in the Old Hebrew Testament of The Bible, most sin, transgressions and unrighteousness is being committed by the group or collective. Sins, or transgressions are not thought about nearly so much in terms of the individual. And when we move along to the New Testament, we find that Jesus is more concerned about the sins of the collective than of the individual. And, of course, the belief that the government is responsible for all our woes is quite popular even today.

In reality we do inherit a large percentage of our illnesses as well as our diseases. We also inherit our language, our religion, our country, our physical characteristics, our beginning beliefs, our beginning economic status, our parents, and on and on.

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Individual and Collective Error

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