A Rallying Cry for the Collective

Once upon a time, I got to experience freedom and the promise of liberty. Things were definitely not perfect, there were still barriers and my life was harder than that of many others because of the multiple identities I hold, but I also had opportunities and got to experience having my own thoughts and viewpoints, speaking my mind, and building a life that could be uniquely my own. I was living in a time when my rights were legally limited at all levels because of my queerness, but also a time where I did have some rights. I lived through being legally discriminated against, and also got to feel what it’s like to have equal rights. I never forgot the contrast between the two, and there is a certain type of gratefulness that comes with feeling a shift in the legal landscape from being viewed as “less than” for things I couldn’t control, to not being viewed as “less than” because I was more my whole self.

But then the time came when my freedom and the freedom of everyone around me was challenged – our rights were under attack. So we came together and decided to use our voices and our power to stand up not just for ourselves, but for each other. We used all of our talents and skills. We made calls, we went to town halls, we chanted and sang and danced in the streets, we provided healing for one another, we created the most beautiful art, we held one another when it was hard, we rested when we needed to, and we prevailed. We preserved democracy. We were the ones who saved us. And we knew none of us could do it alone. We did it because we were a collective. We saved democracy in the spring of 2025 and history will remember us as the everyday people who rose up to be extraordinary during a time that required us to be our best selves. And democracy grew into an even better version than had existed before the resistance. We watched as we built a world that really did protect the planet and created justice and liberation for us all.

This is a story of the time we are in. Part of this story is already written and part of it has yet to play out, but this is the story that I am in. And this story is on track to fully come true thanks to one key piece: the collective. The main takeaway is that we cannot do any of this alone, we need one another. There is already a “we” at play today, right now, and it is never too late to join the collective and to write yourself into the story of how we preserved democracy.

American culture is great at telling the stories of destruction and what has gone wrong. Yet we lack really good stories of how disasters have been averted or mitigated, often by groups rather than individuals. In particular, there is a lack of messaging about how people have come together time and again to create something better for everyone. 

An example from here in New Mexico is the stories told in the media of catastrophic wildfires in our communities. During the wildfire, we are bombarded with nonstop coverage of the devastation and loss, and as time goes on, the story shifts to blame the person(s) who caused the fire and how the government could have done more to stop it or mitigate the impact in real time. Once the fire is fully out, there may be a story about how the government is or isn’t helping anymore. But that is not what really happens, it’s just what is reported. For any of us who have been to communities after catastrophic wildfires, we know firsthand that the real work is in the collective, the ones who come together to help out their neighbors, the groups that work together in both the public and private sector, an individual or small group that has continued to support that community after the fire, and the everyday acts of kindness that remind us of the power of community.

This lack of emphasizing the collective is more about how the story is told, it’s not the actual story itself, which comes from the overemphasis in American culture on individualism, favoring the individual over the collective. There is some truth to this. Every day, I see people who are self-centered and overly focused on what they can gain individually – that’s the “cynical” part of the title of my substack. Yet, I also know firsthand what it means to be part of collectives and move past individualism to be in the power of “we”. I have felt the collective embodiment of being in spaces with others who share the same values and I’ve witnessed and experienced what groups working together can accomplish. It’s astonishing! But our culture and what we’re taught in history do not often reflect these stories. And there is a good reason to hide these stories: there is great power in the collective, and it’s easier to control people when they feel alone and can’t see their own power.

Without these stories of the collective, too many are left to feel stuck in their individual story. And when we remain in our individual stories, it’s too easy to get stuck in our own egos and/or feel that individually our actions don’t matter. This is happening with many people right now. I’m encountering a sense of hopelessness or an expression that individual actions like calling Members of Congress don’t really make a difference. That’s an exact personification of being stuck in individualism. I am choosing to live in the collective, to not just see my actions as separate, but rather as part of a bigger picture, one where together our actions matter greatly.

When we can see that our actions combined with the actions of others are the collective and that the collective matters, then we are part of the story of a movement. These are the stories that are not told broadly in our society, and it’s time we start telling them. 

We’re at a point in history unlike any other, and we can choose to tell the story differently. In the coming days, weeks, and months, we can begin to live as part of the collective and not just look for the individual heroes that we think will swoop in to save us. We can see that the collective is the hero in our story. That all of us and all of our actions are heroic and that we get to live in a time when the story changes. Because at the end of the day, the collective is what gets us to justice and liberation.