A communal society vs. a mass society

A communal society vs. a mass society
Yiftach Goldman (Kibbutz Tamuz)

Through a political struggle alone we might achieve greater equality and social justice, but Socialism does not end with the struggle for social justice solely. The essence of Socialism is the aspiration to allow individuals – all individuals, a humane life. This means: making a person sovereign in their own life, creating a being who shapes their lifestyle in liberty, a creature that determines their life and not only lets life determine for them. At the top of the Socialist ideology stands the human freedom. This is also the top value of democracy. This is why democracy and Socialism merge in their essential root. But human freedom is impossible to reach in a mass society. In a society of masses you cannot actualize neither democracy nor Socialism. The society of the masses turns each human, each individual, to an isolated atom. The individual is one in the crowd, and as such their ability to influence reality is like a drop in the ocean. Such is also their ability to shape their own personal life.
Who of us have not been asked once, in a social activity, in a peula, on a seminar, to draw our circles of belonging? In the center of the page we draw a point: "this is me!" around this point we draw a close circle: "my family". The next circle of belonging is: "the state of Israel" (and sometimes we add a wider circle: "the Jewish nation"). This innocent sketch reveals an important truth: a huge and empty void lies between the familial group of belonging (which counts at most a few dozens of people), and the national group of belonging (which counts about 6 million if it is Israel, and over 10 million if we talk about the Jewish nation). There are no other circles of belonging bridging over this void (which are considered by the individual as essential). In this respect, the mass society is a hollow society. It is impossible to take action in an empty void. It is impossible to create within it. It is impossible to speak and to be heard.
from the individual's perspective, their personal life is an entire world. But from the mass society's perspective the life of each individual is an insignificant statistical piece of data. Every 3 or 4 years, in the time of elections, I go to realize my essence as an active citizen who actively determines his life. All the way to the ballot box I am bothered by the thought that at the end of the day the outcome of the elections will not be influenced at all by my participation or absence from them (surely you will say: "but if masses will not arrive to vote, it will already have a significant influence." This is precisely what I am claiming here: the only way that a private person can influence reality is to be a part of the masses…)
the mass society is a clear product of modern times. The process of modernization created it, just as it created industrialization, science, technology, rational economy, and democracy. This process released powerful forces from their cage (natural, economic, social and political forces) and has turned, for the first time in human history, the human liberty into a realistic option. But this process itself has also disintegrated all of the traditional structures of belonging from the middle ages (the community, the village congregation, the central town, craftsmen guild and so on) and created the mass in their place. It seems that this disintegration was necessary in order to release the human potentials that had the power to establish human liberty. But human liberty will stay a abstract concept only, until the atmosphere of disintegration will be canceled by regenerated construction.
It will be possible to realize human liberty only when communal social relationships between human beings will be rebuilt. In order to be free, the human must hold the reins of progress and direct it to their needs. The human cannot do this as long as they are just one in the crowd. For this, the human needs concrete structures of belonging for doing and creating. For this, the human needs the community. The communal structures will fill the huge void of the mass society. Through them, the atomization of the individual will be canceled. The circles of belonging and doing – real circles with practical power – will turn the individual meaningful and influential subject in the society in which they live.