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Fri 23 Apr, 2010 03:26 pm
I'm still a novice in many ways, and I'm curious to know if there's a term for the phenomenon of committing individual action that conflicts with a belief about collective action because of the marginality of that individual action...despite the fact that a collective is an assortment of individuals, and if every individual had the same idea, no collective action would exist.
It's true that a single vote changes nothing, but since people conceive of themselves as individuals, if many people did not vote as a result because they assumed that each one of them was separate from "everyone else," there would be a significant effect in that case. I regularly eat meat despite supporting Singer's utilitarian defense of animal rights because it has already been prepared, and my personal abstinence will not change the nature or extent of animal mistreatment and slaughter, but if everyone abstained, with each person out of the group necessarily conceiving of him or herself as an individual, the market would be crippled.
Is it necessary to deceive people of the value of individual action as a result of this? Moreover, is this a form of cognitive dissonance, moreover?
@Agnapostate,
Quote:I'm curious to know if there's a term for the phenomenon of committing individual action that conflicts with a belief about collective action
If we're saying the belief is something like 'everyone ought to do X', and the individual acts in a way in contradiction with X, then it's self contradiction, because any given individual is one of those 'everyone' who ought to do X. If it's a belief like say, 'human nature is such that X' and the individual doesn't follow what is supposed to be his human nature, then he has produced a counter example to that belief.
It seems that in any case he is contradicting the belief about group behavior in some way. So depending on the belief it's either a self contradiction or a counter-example.
@Agnapostate,
Agnapostate;155794 wrote:I'm still a novice in many ways, and I'm curious to know if there's a term for the phenomenon of committing individual action that conflicts with a belief about collective action because of the marginality of that individual action...despite the fact that a collective is an assortment of individuals, and if every individual had the same idea, no collective action would exist.
It's true that a single vote changes nothing, but since people conceive of themselves as individuals, if many people did not vote as a result because they assumed that each one of them was separate from "everyone else," there would be a significant effect in that case. I regularly eat meat despite supporting Singer's utilitarian defense of animal rights because it has already been prepared, and my personal abstinence will not change the nature or extent of animal mistreatment and slaughter, but if everyone abstained, with each person out of the group necessarily conceiving of him or herself as an individual, the market would be crippled.
Is it necessary to deceive people of the value of individual action as a result of this? Moreover, is this a form of cognitive dissonance, moreover?
This is why we need good leader that can motivate us mortal humans, to do great feats.
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