The Giver

The scenario is a society free of suffering. How can this be? How can a society be risk-free? Lois Lowry's The Giver presents just this and determines by itself that a society cannot be risk free, and this thought did enthrall my curiosity!

So now I consider Lowry's philosophy. I quite dislike the novel's manipulative utilization of the idea of communism. Lowry makes clear that a society free of suffering and risk cannot exist and should not exist because of individuality. Individuality, according to her notions, is more significant than the liberation of suffering by the means of annihilating risk.

To what extent I disagree I am not sure. I believe individuality and separateness is an illusion. If you were told one of your cells was named Katy would you believe it or care? How ridiculous, of course not! Well a human in humanity is a cell in a body; that human is so extremely insignificant in comparison to the gigantic quantity of humans altogether. Does this justify my anger at individualism? Well, it would be selfish of a human to think themselves superior to another. I think individualism permits this secret sense of superiority in that each cares for themselves alone. Or not necessarily cares, but does for themselves. And actions affect thoughts, thus increasing our senses of superiority. Would not it be ridiculous for our cells to each secretly think themselves superior and be competitive towards each other? Yes it would be because our cells must work together for our bodies to work. And each of us humans make up humanity, which can only function properly if its components are functioning properly. Cells competing would not allow for a body to function. Humans competing does not allow for humanity to function properly. Thus, our conflicts.

Buuuuut.
A cell cannot think. A cell is not conscious. If we could only lose our selfishness and not our conciousness. Why does selfishness exist within consciousness? Because evolution favored the selfish individuals, the ones who could do for themselves. Selfishness is beneficial to the individual but not the population.
The ultimate question here: Is an individual more important than a population? Of course not! A cell is not more important than a body! The sum of components is greater than the components themselves. Though I said earlier a human is BETTER than humanity. I mean by that that a human individual has the ability to make decisions that benefit themselves and others in the realm of their existance. But humanity, although granted the potential, has not and cannot. Perhaps the individual possesses only the potential but because there are more individuals and only one humanity, I am being biased. I do not think an indivual is more important though. So, I quite disagree with Lowry.