The on going argument of ‘The Individual vs. The Collective’ conjures questions about the relationship between the two and its affects on one another. In “The Metropolis and the Mental Life” Georg Simmel projects the significance of being an individual in a technologically run society. By interpreting a spiritual experience, it would help promote a sense of individualism. There should be a connection between technology and spiritualism to create an individual. A conscious identity within a collective, such as a city, is created by the environment in which it exists. Capitalism provides a interesting understanding on how this could be accomplished. An individual can work to create a better life.

I feel as if that shouldnt be the case. If every individual works to create a better life, doesn’t that become a collective? Society is driven on the interpretations of the collective and where it is led to next. Individualism isn’t lost in society anymore, it just isn’t openly acknowledged like it should be.

On a larger scale, we begin to see the collective being separated into individual ideas. In schivelbusch’s text he talks about the national boundaries that countries have created. Our collective is broken into individual parts, where our countries define what it is to be an individual. We are all constantly stuck in a stream of what it means to build a good life. The clashing of ideas in a technological and spiritual world often led to undesirable actions. Which in turn, leads to an input of; is it really worth being an individual in a world so driven by a collective?