These are three different views regarding the relation of an...

These are three different views regarding the relation of an individual with his social environment. We propose to explain them further.

It is the individual who is important According to this view, the main factor in moulding the life of every person is he himself and not the society, for the society is nothing but a collection of individuals, who have learnt by experience that their desires will be better fulfilled if they co‑operate with one another, and consequent on this experience they have been attracted to collective life.

Hence their incentive to lead a collective life is actually their interest in the fulfillment of their personal desires. All the social systems have been devised by the individuals to safeguard their own interests. Hence everywhere the hand of the individual is uppermost and it is his desire and action which play the basic role. The corruption of society also originates from the corrup­tion of the individuals. If every individual reforms himself, the whole society will automatically be reformed.

It is the society which is important According to this view the truth is diametrically opposite to what is maintained by those who say that it is the individual who is important. The exponents of this view hold that it is the society and the social man which are the material reality in this world and not an individual independent of others, for what we find on the face of the earth is only a collection of men mutually correlated and that is what is society.

As in the world of nature every natural being is subservient to a general and universal system of nature and is not absolutely independent, similarly in the society an individual is only a part of it, such a part that follows the whole unhesitatingly and is governed by its over‑all system. Even the ideas of an individual, his way of thinking, his desires, his aspirations and his will are only a reflection of his natural and social environment and the economic conditions of his society and class.

Those who hold that it is the society which is important, maintain that an individual is just like a cell in a living body. A cell cannot be independent of the whole body and its complex system, nor can it develop fully irrespective of the fact whether the whole body is in a healthy and sound state or not. Similarly an individual cannot be independent of the social system in which he lives.