The Fallacy of the Collective Cloak

Too often we seem to try to hide under a collective cloak, to assume that an act or utterance in the name of a crowd or a group or an organization or institution is something for which no one is personally responsible. “We live,” said E. H. Chapin, “too much in platoons; we march by sections; we do not live in our individuality enough; we are slaves to fashion in mind and heart. . . .”

But with all collective deeds and words, there is still a personal responsibility. Things simply don’t do themselves or decide themselves. This hiding under a collective cloak, this shrinking from personal responsibility, this fallacy of supposing that something done in the name of a group is after all quite different from an individual action, is one of the reasons why crowds and combinations of people can sometimes stray so far afield.

There is no such thing as a collective conscience. Conscience is within each of us. And there is no such thing as making a wrong right simply because more than one person participates, or because each one considers his part to be impersonal. For our votes, our acts, our speech, our influence, our encouragement−even for our indifference or silent consent−all of us have a share or responsibility.

“Each of us here,” said Carlyle, “let the world go how it will . . . has he not a Life of his own to lead? . . .The world’s being saved will not save us; nor the world’s being lost destroy us. We should look to ourselves.”

“Sin with the multitude,” said Tryon Edwards, “and your responsibility and guilt are as great and as truly personal, as if you alone had done the wrong.”

“It is a very serious duty, perhaps of all duties the most serious,” said Nathaniel Emmons, “to look into one’s own character and conduct, and accurately read one’s own heart.”

There is no known way, in groups or organizations or institutions, or in society itself, to separate ourselves by a collective cloak from principles or from personal responsibility.