Individual vs Community

The issue of preserving and individual versus a community has been heavily debated for many years. Events such as the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s to the Red Scare of the 1950s, events such as these has provoked the question, which is more important, the individual or the community? The balance between the two is impossible to find, as the two are vastly different.

If one were to attempt to save the community at any cost, he or she may end up destroying it. In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, so many citizen were convicted that there was nobody left in the town. The witch craze caused the entirety of the town to turn on each other in an attempt to save the community, while in fact they were doing quite the opposite. If there is a threat withing the community, people are capable of doing anything to save themselves or the greater good. When one person gets accused, he or she begins to play the blame game, which creates the domino effect. The threat could be anybody, everybody, or nobody. Postmodern, no?

An attempt to solely save one individual could have extreme repercussions, and possibly the same effect as an attempt to save the community. An attempt to save an individual could actually be saving a threat, rather than an innocent. That individual could destroy the entirety of the community. In addition to being a possible threat, it could create bias. Townspeople could become biased and hateful towards a saved individual. Being similar to that individual could cause an unnecessary social collapse,