Yesterday, I was watching "V for Vendatta", probably for the 50th time. OK. It's slightly exaggerated; nevertheless, I watched it and I'd watch it over and over again. I realised that I get the same feeling as I used to when I watched it for the very first time. What makes it so appealing? There are the obvious and superficial reasons, and there are not-so-obvious reasons. The obvious ones - (1) commercial elements like explosions, knife fights (2) appropriately chosen music (3) excellent script equally challenged by an unmatched dialogue delivery (4) screen-play and direction (5) background set on anarchist principles thus making the protagonist go against an entire establishment. The not-so-obvious reasons are of specific interest to me and has been a subject of my curiousity since first semester of my under-graduation period. Upon closer inspection, it gives a direction to my question of whether society is greater than the individual, or the vice-versa. Behind all the trivialities, it addresses the notion of power.
In one of my earlier rants, I was too juvenile and narrow-minded to think clearly and understand how it works. Although the answer is not easy to get to, it turns out, it's not very difficult either - I only needed few more inputs and time to think. If only I had asked why a little sooner!
Anyway, I realised that it is this power that controls the society and and keeps eveything in check. And what is the source of this power? The answer is individual. Untimately, it is an individual (or a set of individuals) over the entire course of human history that shaped the stucture of what and how a society should be. It is he - unlike others - who can think ahead, with the knowledge of the past. It is he who has the power to influence the society with his will and his ideas. Like most animals, even we humans exhibit herd mentality often. I presumed it would follow the pareto principle - 80% of the people get controlled by the other 20%. However, this research produced even more striking results. It concludes that it takes just 5% to influence the rest 95% [1].
One might wonder - But, what of the innumerous instances in our daily lives where he has to put the demands of the society (or group) before his own needs? French sociologist Gustave Le Bon's Contagion theory goes some way to explaining such events. "The crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual, but that, from the point of view of feelings and of the acts these feelings provoke, the crowd may, according to circumstances, be better or worse than the individual. All depends on the nature of the suggestion to which the crowd is exposed." [1]
In one of my earlier rants, I was too juvenile and narrow-minded to think clearly and understand how it works. Although the answer is not easy to get to, it turns out, it's not very difficult either - I only needed few more inputs and time to think. If only I had asked why a little sooner!
Anyway, I realised that it is this power that controls the society and and keeps eveything in check. And what is the source of this power? The answer is individual. Untimately, it is an individual (or a set of individuals) over the entire course of human history that shaped the stucture of what and how a society should be. It is he - unlike others - who can think ahead, with the knowledge of the past. It is he who has the power to influence the society with his will and his ideas. Like most animals, even we humans exhibit herd mentality often. I presumed it would follow the pareto principle - 80% of the people get controlled by the other 20%. However, this research produced even more striking results. It concludes that it takes just 5% to influence the rest 95% [1].
One might wonder - But, what of the innumerous instances in our daily lives where he has to put the demands of the society (or group) before his own needs? French sociologist Gustave Le Bon's Contagion theory goes some way to explaining such events. "The crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual, but that, from the point of view of feelings and of the acts these feelings provoke, the crowd may, according to circumstances, be better or worse than the individual. All depends on the nature of the suggestion to which the crowd is exposed." [1]
Any society is shaped by the individual; not just any individual. The super-heroes (not limited to fiction) fall into this category.
References:
[1] http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/following-the-crowd
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