Collectivism & Individualism, part three

Photograph of a Kenyan tribe
Kargi, Kenya

What is the "Anthropological Distance"?
Monday – September 22, 2025

At what point or at what distance—briefly returning to the subject of hatred that I covered in part two of this series—does the human connection become so diminished that it becomes replaced by the political object of the out-group, the foreigner, the alien, and the outsider? This phenomena of group dynamics or inter collective politics (politics between groups/collectives) is what I have decided to coin/name the "Anthropological Distance", and my question concerns how and when this distance becomes so large that human relations transitions from somewhat equal and cordial or somewhat common grounds to hostile or unequal grounds ripe for conflict, and this is something that can be observed in most social situations and it is a core part of group dynamics, especially once certain conditions that can be described have been meet: indeed these conditions occur for different reasons and often at different points in time, but they are all bound by certain relations that can be connected to the group/collective. Without reiterating parts one and two of this series I just want to briefly put the individual member of the collective in relation to the whole collective: the individual member of the collective relates vertically to the whole of the collective and has been reduced, as a member of the collective, to a political object, owned by the group and bound by the common rules, interests, and rituals of the group, and what makes the individual a member of the group is the willingness on the part of the individual to sacrifice himself for the whole/common interest of the group, and indeed, it seems that men have an innate need to belong to a group, something that likely has evolved as a response to the harsh conditions of the material domain, and this has made men vulnerable to the influence of group dynamics, and indeed the revolutionary elite has recognized this innate weakness in men and used it against them, or rather they've used the innate weakness on the part of individual men to need the context of the collective to survive to advance their own positions within the societal body. Therefore, there's a need or rather as a natural consequence of group dynamics there comes a point when the stratification between different groups within a given societal context becomes clear and obvious, and the social/anthropological distance between the individual members of these strata becomes the political boundaries of each group, and this applies over all dimensions: economic, social, cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, regional, etc, etc, etc. Indeed, it is when men become aware, often suddenly, of their social and political identities that conflict and hatred, if the anthropological distance is large enough, becomes an inevitable part of the human condition and this conflict, often violent, itself in turn confirms and reinforce the political boundaries between groups/collectives, and while this has seemingly been a part of the human condition since the dawn of this our era of the Kali Yuga, this dynamic has intensified in modern times, as the capitalist production base invariably has brought more and more anthropologically separate men together at one single point containing all acceptable social life, the individual: equal, powerless, and without form. Another way to explain this phenomena is this: the smaller and smaller the anthropological distance between men, the more bound they are by each others destiny, for most of human history simply day-to-day survival, and the larger the anthropological distance between men, the less they are bound by anything common, even day-to-day survival, and that has to do with social signals that men communicate between each other on a subtle level and these social signals are carried by different kinds of material markers that can stem from skin color, hair texture, clothing, accents, to subtle ways of pronouncing certain words, etc. Notice that there are different levels of loyalty if you will, and that most men relate differently to different loyalties: most men have warm feelings towards their own family members and colder and colder feelings towards more and more anthropologically distant individuals, and at a certain point, especially in modern political contexts, the human connection becomes gradually replaced by or tuned out by the political object, and this is the point when hatred, fear, and aversion starts to get easy to come by, likely as an evolved response to potential danger. Also, notice that this dynamic only really occurs on the collective/group level, and that the individual only works as the carrier of the social signals of the group, and as such when individual men come to know other individual men they are often usually able to tune out the social signals bound by their loyalties.

    In order to understand people you must understand how people relate to other people or to each other across multiple social contexts, and if you can understand this you can also understand the fundamental constitution of all political life, and this also enables you to step outside of politics and the commotion of the modern world, for you become able to see and when you are able to see you also realize that there's nothing personal about politics or any kind of aversion you feel towards group dynamics: this is just the nature of human relationships, and people in power, the revolutionary elite, knows this about human nature, and their power base relies on the manipulation of men through collective grievance and strife. A soldier that is shot to death by another soldier in a war is really nothing but the final and logical conclusion of the political object, and indeed, there was no personal strife between the two soldiers, and as such there was no need for the bullet to be taken and felt personally: soldiers are merely sacrificed for the common good, and their deaths serves much more than anything practical and logistical a ritualistic and symbolic need within the collective human experience – die for something greater, to die for the "common good". Notice that only the members of the revolutionary elite get to define this common good.

    What then if anything should and can be done on the individual level, the level of each person, of each man? If you intend to not fall for the propaganda of the serpent, if you intend to not transform into the beast you have one option and one option only: you must retire from the world, not from materially but spiritually. You cannot allow the propaganda, subtle as though it may, be to move you into action for or against your perceived self-interest, you cannot allow yourself to be guided by the primordial whims of the beast, for this is the essential and fundamental point of becoming the political object: powerless and without options other than the propaganda and the influences of the serpent. Indeed, you must embrace heroism, you must become the hero and you must symbolically defeat your inner beast and then you may move to defeat the serpent; this is the essence of the man of ascendant rank, he who has defeated his own inner beast and seeks the light by restoring the scales of the celestial order.

    It is paramount that you recognize the ways of the serpent and the fundamental constitution of your time, the Kali Yuga, and while you may feel the warmth and even love from closer and smaller loyalties, do not allow them to blind you: they are used and will be used to defeat you. Indeed, the multicultural order of this latest iteration of our cosmic cycle has ordained that the small and close loyalties should be disrupted and this has also made the presence of large anthropological distances between men very clear, but remember that they exist to confuse you and to hold you down from achieving enlightenment.

    Finally, this was part three in my series called "Collectivism & Individualism, and if you are interested in parts one and two you find them under the label named "Collectivism & Individualism series".

Reginald Drax – September 22, 2025.