This theme recurs again, and yet again. I’ve written several variations of it here, never in some kind of resolution mode, but only as an attempt to comprehend prevalent disharmony, injury to peace—external and internal, societal and individual. Certainly I want to avoid redundancy, but the theme seems to manifest so redundantly that it’s unavoidable and must be observed again, and yet again: All understanding, the necessary foundation of harmony, seems always to lie in the disruption of the relationship between genus and differentia—on so many levels: the individual person vs. marriage or family; tribes or races, ethnic cultures or religious affiliations vs. society at large or national identity. Never has subjective, emotional, response been more dangerous; if ever there was a time to rid ourselves of obfuscating anger and false sentiment, and try to see how the genus-differentia relationship works—indeed, how it must work—that time is now.

The Three Musketeers explained it well: one for all and all for one. Indeed, it must be so. If all are not for one, one cannot be for all. We, both as the one and as the many, are utterly interdependent. The principle is a very simple one; the problem is not some kind of intellectual deficiency, but in understanding its nature: It’s not a formula to be applied here or there, or a rule—worse still, a law—but a reflex, natural to humanity, a basic instinct that operates without conscious awareness, like breathing. It is the nature of unity to include diversity; therein does it derive its definition. That unity must be organic, instinctive; it can’t be externally imposed, unnatural. Then it becomes tyranny. (An example: Legislation that labels opinion as “hate” speech, opinions that differ from the party line—the genus prohibits differentiation.)

What married person has never had to sacrifice his own ambitions, wishes, etc., not in deference to the spouse, but in deference to the marriage? What sibling has never had to give up his own preferences, not in deference to another sibling but in deference to the family? And doesn’t that marriage, that family, provide then the haven of safety, of belonging, of identity, in which a person can grow and thrive as an individual?

I admit this sounds simplistic, but what happens on one level is identical to what happens on another. The recent horrific news of Rotherham in the UK, its larger version acted out by ISIS in northern Iraq, or any ordinary, everyday divorce, any civil strife like the recent episode in Ferguson, Missouri—even the Ukrainian/Russian conflict—all these are conflicts of one vs. many, wherein the identity of the one is threatened by the many, or the stability of the many is threatened by the identity of the one.

Not understanding the necessity for the safe existence of both the genus and the differentia causes really destructive decisions when problems emerge: The police abandoned their duty to protect the citizens of Rotherham when they ignored the many to favor the one. The one (the Pakistani gangs) must be made to understand that their identity as Pakistanis is protected only insofar as they defer to the genus of British society. And if that deference is not there, that society will not be able to protect them. Hostility of differentia toward genus will lead (usually via totalitarian order) to the destruction of differentia. Hostility of genus toward differentia will lead to the destruction of genus (anarchy).

Ideologies, utopian fantasies, glory-seeking, not to mention ordinary conning and politicking, get in the way of common sense. This is not an issue of philosophy, religion, or “values.” It’s the way we’d all behave if we didn’t enjoy being manipulated so much—a very perverse trait in so many people who evidently lead such dull lives they constantly require, like an addiction, some kind of arousal. (I do not use the word stimulation.) But ignoring something so basic, we wallow in the emotionalism of taking sides, vindictiveness, retribution, blaming, anger, and of course, violence. There can be no peace in any society, no matter how large or small, where the particularities of persons are not held sacred, nor can there be any order where those particularities are allowed to dominate society. It’s not a belief system of any kind, or a judgment of good vs evil; it’s just the only sensible way for human beings to live together. It requires minimal intelligence and a zero tolerance for nonsense—which has its own rightful place.