Collectivism vs Individualism (ethic, education, government, work)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The "corner stone" of the market economy is the kind of "liberalism" that sets you free from the oppression of kings and aristocracy, the one that tells you that "all men are born equal" in terms of abolishment of the system of the BIRTH rights, but it still doesn't set you free from the MONEY rights system.
And when you live in THAT system, you still find yourself adhering to the "conservative values" on one hand ( that is if you have money,) and "liberal" ( even more) left ideas in a SOCIAL sense of it.
But THIS kind of "liberalism" already has nothing to do with "individualism."
This is the kind of "liberalism" that already pulls towards the "collectivism."
I speak more of modern day capitalism and global markets.
Being inclined to see ones self as a global citizen is more in tune with global consumer markets. America is a service economy that promotes more and more disruption in traditional industries. Income mobility (when achieved) is good for the economy. Social isolation, especially when living in a major city, is important to marketing mass media/entertainment to replace traditional cultures. Choosing different lifestyle choices opens the door to more monetization.
The global consumer economy America is in right now is best supported by Liberal ideals, even if liberals criticize capitalism.
It also leads to homogenization of behavior, just in a different way then conservatism. Conservatives want to support a value system for different classes to adhere to. However, mass market capitalism leads to the greatest common denominator winning out since that is marketable to the most amount of people.
Take social media for example. Its a place where every individual is allowed (with little economic barrier) to produce their own entertainment (tik tok, youtube, instagram, etc.). But without intervention, after a time, you see social behavior merge into one unit. Trends are copied by everyone, and individuals end up looking towards others to impress, which leads to conformity.
Its different from conservative conformity, and ironically I think some conservative societies have more diversity of thought than open liberal democracies, but that is the sort of 'collectivism' you speak when looking at liberals.
But the idea of liberalism when talking about groups (LGBTQ, Immigrants, Blacks, etc.) is about normalizing different lifestyle choices to free individuals to be more 'expressive' of themselves. If that leads to more conformity because of mass marketing and social pressure, then that is still rooted in extreme individualism.
The conservatives say everyone has a purpose and should act for the greater good, the liberal says people are free and independent souls who should have the right to pursue whatever lifestyle they wish.
Liberalism to its extreme wants to destroy wealth classes not because they hate the rich, but because anyone should be allowed to be part of the responsibilities placed on different classes. There is no concept of social order, but creative chaos. They lionize single mother households or deviant social behavior because they want to promote the idea of equal rights for people to be who and what they want.
Rarely do people say what they actually believe. And even if they believe something consciously, do they believe it subconsciously? Is that who they really are? Or do they just find it temporarily useful? Or maybe it makes them feel good, or morally-superior, often at no cost?
Politics is and has always been the way people get what they want. They mask their true intentions by hiding behind ideologies, rhetoric, platitudes, statistics, and any number of things because they have to convince other people to go along with it. And even still they appeal less with facts and logic, and more with emotions and self-interest(greed).
The true motivation for liberals is not so much a hatred of the rich, but a hatred of people better than them(at least perceptually). Their instinct is to knock the people above them down. And the far-left consists primarily of social-misfits and outcasts who feel unloved, unwanted, picked-on, mistreated, and bullied.
The reason the liberal has no love for America is because he either doesn't like it or doesn't identify with it. To him, America is just some place people live, and he often feels more in common with people in other countries than his own. To the extent he loves America is only to the extent he thinks he can mold it into whatever he wants it to be. And while he is in power, or at least perceives he might have power, he may even profess a love for his country, but the moment he loses power again, he wants out.
The liberal might claim to be for freedom, but he really isn't. The only freedom he wants is his own. He wants to escape the tyranny of others but not for any hatred of tyranny, not on principle, but merely because he disagrees with it. The moment he agrees with it he embraces it with all his mind, body, and spirit.
He doesn't hate government, he hates this government. And that is generally true for libertarians and so-called anarchists as well.
"I always had an aversion to your apostles of freedom; each but sought for himself freedom to do what he liked." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country." - Alexis De Tocqueville
You seem to want to inject some kind of nobility into these people. If you could psychoanalyze Thomas Paine, was he truly driven by reason? Or even liberty? Or was it just blind hatred for Christianity and the governments of the time? People who want change will always call it progress. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
The only positive thing I'll say about liberals, is that although they hate their country, they want to love it, and to be loved by it. They are longing for something they've never had. They aren't collectivists, but they want to be. They just have no people, they have no community, in most cases they don't even have family. They are alone, surrounded by a world which often reviles them, and so they are lashing-out against the people above them, the people in power.
"Égalité is an expression of envy. It means, in the real heart of every Republican, 'No one shall be better off than I am'." - Alexis De Tocqueville
Take social media for example. Its a place where every individual is allowed (with little economic barrier) to produce their own entertainment (tik tok, youtube, instagram, etc.).
Entertainment is basically prostitution. And look at what sells best.
I agree somewhat that entertainment can produce a kind of conformity, but only if everyone is consuming the same entertainment. Sports are something that can unite people across all backgrounds. Nothing is more "national" than sports. But now that entertainment has been more democratized, you see a kind of unraveling of the common culture. Even worse now that entertainment is made to be exported, so it feels increasingly less-American.
I don't know if entertainment is individualistic. It is commercial. Therefore it has no country, no people, and no culture. And whatever can be sold must be sold.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 07-27-2020 at 12:04 PM..
American conservatives betrayed their ideology for money.
Everyone has, but conservatives especially.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterfall8324
Conservatism has always been about constraining the individual with social responsibility and separate classes to create a more cohesive society.
Conservatism supposes the existence of "human-nature", and it tries to create a "good society" within those constraints. Liberalism going all the back to John Locke rejected human-nature, believing instead in the "blank-slate". Conservatism is realism, liberalism is idealism.
It isn't that conservatives are trying to enforce "social-hierarchies", but rather they acknowledge that certain hierarchies are natural. Within a family there are hierarchies, parents over their children, and in general "elders" over the youth. This is less a rigid hierarchy of force, but a kind of mutually-acknowledged hierarchy based on knowledge, experience, and respect.
But if someone is above you, it must mean they are better than you. Smarter than you, more knowledgeable than you, more capable than you, etc. The liberal refuses to believe anyone is better than him. Though ironically, he believes he is better than everyone else. The liberal respects no one, but demands respect from everyone else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterfall8324
Liberalism is about freeing the individual from social hierarchies and allowing them to be and do whatever they want (free expression).
People aren't born liberal, they choose to be liberal. But why would someone choose to be liberal? What is attractive about liberalism? And do liberals necessarily stay liberal as they get older? What causes them to change?
I agree that liberals hate hierarchy, but the reasons are complicated, and it has less to do with free expression than a hatred for authority. They see authority as just something that wants to control them, to oppress them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterfall8324
They believe that a person should be free to do whatever they want, and insofar as a communist dictatorship opposes that possibility, they are less liberal and more conservative.
Communist anything isn't conservative. But I agree somewhat.
As for Burke, I think the article doesn't do a good enough job explaining the whole group thing. Burke understood that humans are social animals who live in groups. But as I've noted in my constant references to Dunbar's number, holding large groups of people together is hard. And bringing large groups of people together in a peaceful way is even harder. Individualism is all well-and-good, but you need something to hold us together, something in common. Individualism doesn't create society. Individualism is necessarily antisocial. It doesn't believe in society. It doesn't even believe in government except as a tool to be used in the most selfish and cynical ways.
Burke understood that freedom is illusory, you can only be free to "do good"(men of intemperate minds cannot be free). The libertarian Non-Aggression principle is nice but it doesn't create a society. Moreover, libertarians presuppose that everyone places money above everything. Governments do, but people are emotional creatures and many aren't motivated by money at all.
Society needs something to hold us together, and most importantly it needs a "moral consensus". We have to agree what is right and wrong. You cannot legislate morality, but all laws are fundamentally moral laws. Thus morality cannot come from government, it must either come from nature, or from god. The value of religion is that it provides an objective-morality that creates a moral-consensus which allows people to live together. But only insofar as everyone believes it.
But not everyone is the same religion, and some not at all, so a moral-consensus built on religion would be limited in size to small communities. To maintain a large empire, or especially a global empire, a new consensus must be created. But through what? They'll say through "reason" or even through "culture"(IE philosophy). But the reality is, it is always created through what amounts to mass propaganda. Government-education and mass-media, to condition man's mind from above with the proper ideas, the proper values, the proper behaviors, etc.
In these "socialist" countries they made no qualms whatsoever about this process. Stalin, Mao, and all the rest used brute force and compulsory "education" to create a new society. The question is, were they actually successful in creating a new society with new values? Or did they just destroy what was there and attempt to amalgamate what was left by force?
Having spent some time around Chinese people, let me just say, China is NOT socialist. A socialist is someone who loves his country. The Chinese do not love their country, or their countrymen, they just hate everyone else even more. I know I'm always angry at white people and Westerners in general for their money-obsession and selfishness. But in comparison to much of the world, white people are incredibly generous. The rest of the world is basically 100% transactional. If they don't get something out of it, they won't do anything. The Chinese are far better capitalists than us.
Christian culture is based on communality not reciprocity. Communality is like a family. You help your family not because they pay you, but because it is the right thing to do. If two people dedicate their lives to trying to make themselves happy, neither of them will be happy. But if they both dedicate their lives to making the other person happy, they'll both be happy.
These "creative" people you're talking about. There are really two types of creativity. There is the rebellious/attention-seeking creativity, and there is the kind of problem-solving/empathetic creativity. In either case, the creative person wants to share his creations with the world. In fact, his greatest reward is seeing other people enjoying his work. He often puts in tens, or even hundreds of hours so that other people can enjoy what he created.
Not only does capitalism hamper creativity by narrowing it to only to what is profitable, but artists are rarely businessmen. They often realize little if any of the profits from their own work. Even if they offer it for free, someone will find a way to monetize it.
Christian culture is based on communality not reciprocity. Communality is like a family. You help your family not because they pay you, but because it is the right thing to do. If two people dedicate their lives to trying to make themselves happy, neither of them will be happy. But if they both dedicate their lives to making the other person happy, they'll both be happy.
These "creative" people you're talking about. There are really two types of creativity. There is the rebellious/attention-seeking creativity, and there is the kind of problem-solving/empathetic creativity. In either case, the creative person wants to share his creations with the world. In fact, his greatest reward is seeing other people enjoying his work. He often puts in tens, or even hundreds of hours so that other people can enjoy what he created.
Not only does capitalism hamper creativity by narrowing it to only to what is profitable, but artists are rarely businessmen. They often realize little if any of the profits from their own work. Even if they offer it for free, someone will find a way to monetize it.
I always wonder about this too. Worlds brightest people are not working for the governments.Definitely not teachers either . They work for corporations. If you look at the most profitable companies like FB or Google - they mainly get their revenue from ads - but from small businesses which eventually fail.
Facebook says their vision is to unite people, but its the major player that enables people to bash those who don't share their views.
Go to LInkedin, people say they are passionate about technology, but cant that passion be used to advance humanity ? rather than being used for selling goods??
I always wonder about this too. Worlds brightest people are not working for the governments.Definitely not teachers either . They work for corporations. If you look at the most profitable companies like FB or Google - they mainly get their revenue from ads - but from small businesses which eventually fail.
Facebook says their vision is to unite people, but its the major player that enables people to bash those who don't share their views.
Go to LInkedin, people say they are passionate about technology, but cant that passion be used to advance humanity ? rather than being used for selling goods??
Many companies and their employees use terms like, 'here at google, we are working to change the world'.
That seems to have an empathetic/ambitious connotation, but it usually revolves making it easier for more people to consume more content.
That goes with increasing access of marketable goods to disconnected communities, to giving people with disabilities more opportunities to spend money/stimulate the economy.
It can often times seem convincing that these are morally good goals, but Americans have a hard time evaluating what they want the world/society to look like.
In sociology there is a concept of concentric social rings around each individual. There is a very small number of close people that someone really cares about. Then there is a wider circle with people one knows, but who are not really close. And the further out you get (like the outer layers of an onion), the less the person at the center cares about them.
In short, according to those scientists each human can only care about a rather small number of people, the rest of society is just an anonymous crowd that can't be trusted. The brain is hardwired like that. So they say.
One old question regarding this topic is: what is more important, the individual or society?
In sociology there is a concept of concentric social rings around each individual. There is a very small number of close people that someone really cares about. Then there is a wider circle with people one knows, but who are not really close. And the further out you get (like the outer layers of an onion), the less the person at the center cares about them.
In short, according to those scientists each human can only care about a rather small number of people, the rest of society is just an anonymous crowd that can't be trusted. The brain is hardwired like that. So they say.
One old question regarding this topic is: what is more important, the individual or society?
Reading the amazon thread right now, it reminds me how little modern day 'conservatives' care about national rights. They gleefully claim Amazon should be allowed to do anything including undermining the US government.
Corporations are their own form of grouping/collectivization, but not one I thought conservatives would embrace.
Alas so is the righty tighty Reagan fantasy of the "shining city on the hill". What he neglected to mention is that shining city cant exist without bunch slaves (low paid wage slaves or otherwise) to build and service it. You cant have an aristocracy without the peasants. Cause heaven forbid the aristocracy has to wipe their own butt.
Capitalism is a big lie implying everybody can be an Indian Chief, when in actuality they really mean a few lucky white skinned men born with a silver spoon stuck up their ass can be Indian Chief if they try real hard. Alas meritocracy itself is a big lie. So capitalism is a big HOAX also.
Those with sense of reality realize short of winning some mega lottery they arent going to be super wealthy, yet capitalism keeps holding out that illusive carrot for those foolish enough to chase it.
Interesting. Tell that to Jeff Bezos, you might have heard about him...
Interesting. Tell that to Jeff Bezos, you might have heard about him...
The elite in America are pretty mobile, but they are a small portion of society.
Even if 90% of the ultra rich came from poor backgrounds, the ultra rich will still only make up a small fraction of society. The point is capitalism promises wealth for everyone, but only a few can achieve it at one time or else society would fall of the rails.
These new rich have no sense of noblesse-oblige and are themselves driven purely by personal ambition, not responsibility to the masses.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
