Individualism VS Collectivism

[abcqwerty123]

I have recently been coming up with my own understanding/philosophy of individualism and collectivism. I want to give a brief understanding from me and then hear what all of you have to say because I may be way off here. 

 

Collectivism is where people group up and treat the group as more important then any individual. In collectivism, by definition, people cannot have self-respect or respect for any individual as they see themselves and others as less important then the group, not realizing that it is the individuals who make the group. Now, what does this lead to? It leads to being controlled.

Let's say that we have 10 people. 5 of them are white and 5 are black. So we have 2 groups of people who people their own group to be more important then themselves, to others in their group, and definitely more important then the other group. Then inside of those 5 people who are white, we have 2 people who are males and 3 people who are females. Now you have 2 white males, 3 white females and 5 black people. Now, one of those white males and 1 of the white females are Canadian while the rest of American.

-5 black people

-1 white Canadian male

-1 white American male

-1 white Canadian female

-2 white American female

As you keep going, eventually, you end up with 10 individuals who have no self-respect and no respect for anyone else, and the only thing important is the group that nobody belongs to except themselves. This allows for people to take control by making each group seem horrible/evil to each other group, creating conflict, and then allow for the masters to jump in to protect them and do onto groups what other groups want to do. (I apologize for this being confusing.)

 

Individualism is where people have self-respect and self-understanding, allowing for believing that each individual is more important then any group. By having self-respect and self-understanding, you judge people as individuals rather then as groups and understand the value of each individual.

 

Real Life Application: Now, let's apply this to real life and see how each one would play out. In America right night, society falls into collectivism. We currently have a ton of battles between groups while our masters (government) controls us. We have whites vs blacks, American vs not, male vs female, republican vs democrat, religion vs atheism, young vs old, tattoos vs no tattoos, drugs vs no drugs, etc... We have so many groups that it is very hard to even find people in all the same groups as yourself. Then you have government consistently telling everyone how each group is bad and how government is protecting us and how if we didn't have government there to protect us, that each battle would turn into war creating complete chaos. The collectivists have no respect for themselves or others, so they don't feel they would fair well in chaos and so they rely on their supposed heroes to protect them. As time passes, people will slowly wake up and see government as a cancer and not the cure they had believed, and when enough people do, a violent revolution will occur because the people woke up to the reality of government, but still are collectivists. They don't understand the value of each individual and they don't trust/respect anyone that doesn't fit into all their own groups, to trust/respect them. When you have people who fear everyone else attacking them, you will have people who begin to attack. You will have certain groups that are already heated up through crap they were fed by government, and they will already be itching to fight.

In the end, there will be small scattered groups everywhere, believing everyone outside of their groups are a threat while some groups just travel and attempt to conquer. Knowledge and education will diminish along with the population. Eventually, the groups will grow and grow along with their chains of hierarchy. The groups will slowly go to war with other groups over land, resources and control. Then the entire process begins again.

 

What would happen if society was filled with individualists? Well, people would believe in themselves, always pushing to be better and to better every aspect of their lives. They would do what they wanted, pushing to accomplish their dreams. They would have respect for others allowing them to accept people for who they are rather then hating them for not being a clone of themselves. In the process of bettering themselves, they would understand the fallacy of hierarchy, meaning that there would be no rulers. No rulers means no monopoly. No monopoly means pure competition to be the best, and without violence since each individual has respect for and understands the value of each other individual. I guess you could say it would be what all the collectivists call, "Utopia".

[dsayers]

The group only has meaning if the individuals do. Also, the only way to truly value the other is to value the self. The way I see it, there's only one way to meaningfully divide people. That is those who initiate the use of force to achieve their goals and those who will not.

 

Those who initiate the use of force have been trained and train others to see people as other divisions to distract from the one that matters. You can't argue with success  I think this is why philosophy, self-knowledge, and concentrating on the moral consideration first and foremost are so important.