Individualism and Collectivism

(Evening)

"Good evening, Horikita-senpai~."

"Mm."

The two sat on a bench, Seishiki drinking hot cocoa.

"The activity room and advisor are all arranged. We can start club activities next week."

"Great~."

Manabu Horikita popped open the tab on his canned coffee and asked a question.

"Nagumo didn't give you a hard time yesterday, did he?"

Seishiki's pupils shifted, and he answered without hesitation.

"No, not at all. Nagumo-senpai was very kind and approachable."

"Kind and approachable, huh..."

Horikita took a sip of coffee, observing Seishiki's mood. His gaze was too sharp, as if trying to cut open Seishiki's inner thoughts.

"What's wrong?"

Seishiki asked weakly.

"No... it's nothing."

"Seishiki Otonashi, which do you think is more important—the collective or the individual?"

Horikita threw out a question.

The collective or the individual? Boring. It's a debate with no standard answer...

"Both are important. Whether you choose the side of the individual or the collective, neither is wrong. Isn't that right?"

"Oh? Why do you think that?"

"Individuals form the collective, and the collective relies on individuals. Both are important."

"No matter which ideology you advocate, aren't people ultimately seeking happiness? No matter how foolish or unreasonable a person's words may be, for that person, it's still an option that can bring them happiness."

"An interesting perspective."

Horikita smiled. It was the first time he'd heard such an answer.

"The collective also harbors evil, and the individual also holds selfishness. What benefits the collective isn't necessarily good for every individual. What benefits every individual isn't necessarily good for the collective."

"'Collectivism' is an ideology that respects humanity, but it ignores human desires and malice."

"The group is real, just as the individual is real. The individual is not transcendent, just as the group is not transcendent."

"If one day you had the power to decide the lives of an elderly married couple, what would you do?"

Seishiki turned the question back on Horikita.

"This question... what's the point?"

Horikita was taken aback by it.

"Some people think the elderly are meritorious figures from the past who built today's Japan. But others think the elderly are 'old pests' who should all go die."

"Which one is correct?"

"The first."

Horikita answered without hesitation.

"In the past, the term 'old pest' was used to insult the elderly who hogged social resources. As the aging population worsened, those old geezers in their seventies and eighties in Japan's Diet increased welfare for the elderly to win more votes. Welfare costs money, and where does the money come from? Tax hikes."

"Suppose the elderly hold 10 units of social resources, and the young hold 8. A tax increase takes 1 from everyone. In that environment, how would you survive? Japan is a pitiful island controlled by the elderly. Those with real power are decrepit old men who only look out for their own interests."

"A bunch of elderly people you don't even know occupy vast social resources. If they keep living long lives, you and your children will be stuck in poverty forever. That's the reality Japan's poor young generation has to face."

"A group of elderly people with real power hinders the full development of the younger generation, especially when the aging leadership in corporations and politics weakens organizational vitality. Young people see no chance of promotion or pay raises and fall into a state of low desire."

"This skewed allocation of resources favoring the elderly leads the younger generation to extreme thoughts like 'the elderly should all go die.' In reality, a large number of elderly people occupy the social resources of the young, so having such thoughts is understandable. Over in South Korea, a trend of hating children is spreading, and the essence is the same."

"If your family is poor, your thoughts will be twisted and changed by your environment. It's like the individual and the collective. People, depending on their class, environment, and self-awareness, all develop different levels of thought. No one is wrong, but everyone is wrong..."

"Everyone has their own childhood. Even if it's not vivid, some unforgettable things happen. Those unforgettable things, fragmented, combine into our 'general shape' later on. Not the outer shape, but past experiences that we've unconsciously internalized into a kind of 'personality'—what philosophers often call the inner world."

Seishiki's purple pupils fixed on Horikita...

"It's the environment that changes a person's personality, so debating any ideology is meaningless. No matter which ideology, the final thought is always... how to attain happiness."

At that moment, Horikita's impression of Seishiki grew increasingly hazy, even eerie.