In the context of society, it is the notion of the collective that is of concern. So when addressing society, one must first ask “what is the collective?” and “why the collective?”. We can define ‘the collective’ as a consensus between two or more individuals. But for it to materialize, it must first be realized. 

We can conceptualize ‘existence’ as the struggle to resolve the contradiction between human finitude within the sensible, and the whole beyond it (humanity). Consequently, in the world of the primitive man, the world of individuals, existence, as a shared struggle, is a unifying factor that would incentivize and engender the realization of the notion of ‘the collective.’ Within such realization then, equality is implicit. From a material point of view for instance, this struggle manifests itself as the struggle for survival: in food, shelter, and safety. 

Then, with consciousness of equality as a prerequisite, the collective can be conceptualized in turn as an insurgency of the individual against their own finitude, in order to approach the whole, the infinite. Such a notion now appears as a revolution upon its realization. Equality implicit in the collective now, imposes itself, and manifests itself in the form of social interactions within it. Particularly through equality, the individual within the collective now rises to the infinite: each individual within the collective is the collective; each individual in the collective is the negation of all other individuals within the same collective; from one, to that who is not anyone else. 

If society then rose from such conceptualization of the collective, equality is in the definition, with unity as a feature, and  the realization of the collective within it becomes an act of finding the right division to pursue the struggle of existence: to live. By induction then, the struggle of existence lies in the persistent correction for inequality within the sensible to approach equality beyond it. In the absence of this persistent approach towards equality, and, by induction, acceptance of human finitude within the sensible and abolishing what is beyond it (humanity), the individual is dead. 

So what if we decided instead to surrender to the rotten corpses of humanity, where there is only room for parasitism, and define “the collective” from without equality. Then a forcing term, also from without, must incentivize and engender the consensus implicit in the collective. Let us call that term, privilege. Now the driving force enforcing and governing the collective is the perpetuation of privilege: for parasites, to spread, is to live, “like worms in a corpse.” But inequality is implicit in privilege, and now we start naming the dead corpses in pairs to distinguish between the privileged and underprivileged: superior-inferior, master-slave, civilized-barbaric, lord-serf, king-citizen, genius-dunce, leader-follower, teacher-student, and so on. Now society, based on such “collective,” is not a human construct, but a social one. 

The essence of this construct lies in the conflation of the intelligence of the underprivileged with the will of the privileged for that latter now can be considered as the social machinery or mechanism. In contrast with the former definition of society, thought is now perverted, and order, implicit in the collective, ceases to be a tool. In this definition, order is the end and existence is originating from without, the struggle to conform. And now it becomes that within such society, order is menaced whenever nonconformity is manifested. 

Then the return from the latter to the former starts with a massacre, the murder of the privileged and the under-privileged (in all fairness one of them maybe suicidal anyway). The residual is a pile of labels, existing in pairs, that rise from the sensible back to the infinite: as concepts. And everyone is now a process, everyone is now an artist in the city of artists.

Consider the teacher-student interaction, where the teacher is an intermediary between the book and the student. Additionally, consider a superior-inferior dynamics in this interaction. We can assume that the superiority of the teacher originates from long experience in teaching, theorizing and critical thinking, against the inferiority of the raw human manifested in the student. Implicit in the superior-inferior dynamics here, the intelligence of the student is serving the will of the teacher, for the student, under such dynamics, is only receiving the teacher’s outlook on the book. 

Consequently, a gap is maintained, for the teacher will always have a head start, within the sensible in terms of experience, and depth on the outlook itself (their own). Thus, the superior-inferior dynamics is perpetuated, and knowledge, as a process, becomes a decaying one. The unconscious hope within the student is in a stroke of luck, imposed by circumstances externally, and inwards, that would allow them to break free back to their own will, their own humanity: let’s call it a stroke of genius.

If instead the interaction is governed by the struggle for knowledge shared by the teacher and the student, then the superior-inferior dynamics is replaced by a theatrical display. In this display, the book is the script and the student is the audience. But it is in the teacher where we need to pay close attention. There is no doubt, within the material scope, there is inequality between the teacher and the student. But through a duality within the teacher it is corrected and resolved. 

First, in this theatrical display, the teacher takes the role of the performer to communicate the book to the student through drama: thereby opening a dialogue between the student and the author. Second, in the struggle of teaching, implicit in the struggle for knowledge, the teacher also takes the role of the audience, opening a dialogue within the audience in understanding the script and the author behind it: a dialogue between the teacher and student, leveling between both of them. Through such mechanism, not only is the intelligence of the student liberated from the will of the teacher, but now also serving only the student’s own will. Now, everyone is a teacher, everyone is a student, or no one is either.