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@livinghell I think I like Proudhon's approach the most in resolving that conflict: viewing society as a sort of abstract collective individual that exists horizontally with all of the other individuals in society (both other collectives and people like us), and treating it as we would any other such individual, by existing in a sort of push-pull ever evolving balance with it where each asserts their own interests and respects the other's interests as equally relevant where both are effected. Thus we don't have to view ourselves as in debt to society or subordinated to it nor do we have to deny the existence of such an abstract collective entity and ignore collective interests — instead we can take those interests into account without any subordination at all and proceed in an ongoing ever shifting balance. Of course it's always important to remember that search collectivities arise from the individuals that make them up and have a sort of meta existence as an epiphenomena and abstract concept, since confusing two things at very different levels of reality is a recipe for disaster, but I think it's a pretty good framework nonetheless. It should also be noted that it isn't a problem that there are far more individuals than there are collectivities made up of those individuals — almost of necessity — since this isn't a sort of majoritarian democracy approach to balancing interests where the most numerous aligned interests went out but instead that every distinct interest no matter how many people have it is balanced equally in decisions. If you're interested in more about this I highly recommend checking out Shawn P. Wilbur's work!