Pakistan Times!

To derive a comparison between individualist and collective societies here is best example of Spiderman Song. Two videos by Switchfoot (Music Group from USA) and second one is by Strings (Music group from Pakistan) drags our attention towards how true is Harmon’s theory that “Men are to grater extent products of their institutional environment i.e. society”. Preferences are designed in accordance with their cognitive developments and ultimately what remains important for one who raises in an individualistic society is; his own SELF rather for other to larger extents whole of the society.

Careful analysis of the lyrics reveals how these two videos video and their lyrics relates to an individualistic audience whereas the other one is for the collective audience. The general theme of both the videos and its lyrics warrants its viewers to think about a certain question. The question in both cases is related to situations where the present condition is not satisfactory and either there is a need to do much more or there is a puzzle as to the way things are and how they came to be.

Analyzing the video by Switchfoot we can see that the lyrics address an individual in the first three verses. The next verses although say “we were meant to live for so much more”, we in this case is not used to refer to a collective group but what he means is that we as individuals were meant to do so much more. The individualistic notion can be judged from the fact that the singer asks for a second life to make things right. Such a request leads us to believe that the singer is referring to an individualistic audience residing in western, advanced and developed nations which has grievances about how a person’s nature has become and a need for a second chance to make him less materialistic, nature loving and a better human being. Also the video focuses on a single singer to emphasize the individualistic notion.

Video by Strings presents a group of two and their lyrics presents ideas or question which do not directly focus on an individual and is more of a general nature. The references to occurrences of nature like light, fragrance, clouds indicates that the video corresponds to a collectivist audience which resides in a more traditional and less developed society where focus is more towards spiritual happening. Also ideas like aspiration and hope are more close to a collectivist society.

A conclusion can be drawn here to differentiate between an individualistic approach and collective approach and ultimate culmination of these approaches can be clearly felt in these two videos and their lyrics.

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