Individuals & Groups

Individuals have certain needs and desires. Groups are made of individuals. Before the people join the group, there are no real group needs and desires. A group is a simulation of a personality written larger than a single individual. It can eventually have an identity, but it is a collective representation.

However, as an emergent phenomenon, a group can develop a character with specific goals. When this happens, the goals of the group can be opposed to the needs of many of the individuals that constitute it. This happens in families. This happens in schools. This happens in other groups where membership is mandatory, like prisons and armies.

The simplest needs of individuals are easiest to meet. But the more complex needs of individuals cannot be met by groups. Groups are best at helping with the lowest common denominators. As each of us come to know more of our own individuality, we come to terms with rare circumstances. Only a few people share most of your personality traits, and no one shares with you your full configuration of inner and outer circumstances. Laws for groups of people can only address the most general situations. Laws keep a boundary around us, as if to say ~ "Don't do these things and we will all get along alright".

Therefore, Individuality is key to this discussion.
Only living individuals can express creativity, make choices and exercise freedom.
Groups cannot.

Quotes

“Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
Vince Lombardi

“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller

“Most great learning happens in groups. Collaboration is the stuff of growth.”
Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D.

“Teamwork divides the tasks and multiplies the success.”
author unknown

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”
H.E. Luccock

“If we would just support each other - that's ninety percent of the problem.”
Edward Gardner

“No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.”
Althea Gibson

“We should not only use the brains we have but all that we can borrow.”
Woodrow Wilson

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
Charles Darwin

“If we do not hang together, we will all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin

“The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.”
Margaret Carty

“Many hands make light work.”
John Heywood

“Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.”
Kenyan Proverb

“None of us is as smart as all of us.”
Ken Blanchard

“A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.”
Father Strickland

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ”
Margaret Meade

“A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skill of the others.”
Norman Shidle

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
George Burns

“Individually, we are one drop. Together we are an ocean.”
Ryunosuke Satoro

“TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More”
author unknown

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. ”
Buddha

“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
Benjamin Franklin