“People” As a Label Is a Myth To Obfuscate the Future
We live in the people’s era, where individuals are valued, and hierarchies are evil: does it make sense?
As western people, our beliefs ground on the individual. For example, when we talk about “freedom,” we think of individuals’ freedom. We collectively call them “people,” a popular word and an even more popular way of feeling part of… what?
It all starts with a sense of loneliness and fear of the world. Together we are stronger. That’s common sense, but is that all the story?
There’s a contradiction
Is a multitude of individuals still attentive to every single individual?
A group of people has its laws, which give the group the identity that makes members feel part of a whole and, at the same time, be much less individual.
Groups’ laws restrict freedom and say what people can and cannot do to stay in those groups. That’s the price of mitigating the original sense of loneliness that brings us to belong to a group of people. Or to belong to “people,” full stop.
We proudly state that we value individuals, too. Moreover, we know individuals are almost nothing outside a group. Yet, in a group, individuals stop being individuals to become part of a clan.
That’s the contradiction.
By the way, contradictions move the world. So, finding a contradiction is nothing terrible; it just brings more awareness. But it also reveals a loss of meaning in our lives.
Which loss of meaning? Loss of responsibility.
When “people” become the source of truth to decide good and bad, we obfuscate a fundamental duty: to take responsibility, which is always individual. But individuals are no longer such within a group: they become members, and the group defines them. Finally, when there is no individual, there is no responsibility.
What’s responsibility?
Discipline
Discipline has to do with vision. That is the ability to foreshadow a future in which an idea becomes tangible, and its benefits are appreciated. Discipline is the willpower that leads to the future.
Responsibility mirrors discipline when it comes to acting. It deals with reliability and the ability to keep a promise. And hierarchies are responsibilities in a network, allowing one to recognize who is responsible for what when many people act.
Discipline, responsibility, and hierarchies are engines that move toward the future. Even when values change and old disciplines and responsibilities wane, new ones arise, and some are always there as the building blocks of tomorrow.
Based on the historical period, most people either hated or suffered discipline. Nowadays, most western people hate it. As far as I know, people have never loved it spontaneously because discipline is strenuous and limits freedom.
Then, there is a small, small, small group of people who fall in love with discipline as a demanding and rewarding companion in life. The reward is power: these often are rich people who are no longer “people” but, thanks to the discipline, stay above “people.” That does not mean they are better humans: they are just more powerful.
Discipline leads to giving up something today for a more significant benefit in the future: discipline allows some of us to take responsibility, live in the future, and be many steps forwards compared to others who live in the present only.
My takeaway
I wrote this article to clarify a gut feeling I have. I don’t want to convince you that I’m right. The will to be right is overrated and, often, a symptom of profound ignorance.
No doubt that freedom to be whatever people want is a value. Yet, it is not all. Remember a famous sentence from Sergio Marchionne:
If by rights alone we shall live, by rights we shall die.
The myth of “people” embodies rights, and that’s valuable. But where are the corresponding duties? If there are no duties and responsibilities, discipline becomes meaningless for most people who, consequently, lose the ability to build the future, and become slaves without being aware of it.
That’s why “people” as a label obfuscates the future: it devalues the idea of discipline, then of responsibility.
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