Reconciling the Divide Between Individualism and Collectivism

@hue-man,

hue-man;104722 wrote:

At the beginning of my philosophic development, I leaned towards the side of collectivism. I now tend to lean towards the side of individualism.

Both individualism and collectivism entail and recognize each other. Collectivism values the worth of the collective or communal body more than the individual, while individualism values the worth and independence of the individual more than the collective good.

Is there anyway that these two philosophies can be reconciled? Is it possible to value the collective and the individual equally and still make philosophic sense? Does social contract theory borrow from both?

I am sure you do not quite get it... The object of the community is defense which is the same object our nation has... Every single one of these communities we hear of: the Jewish community, the gay community, or the black community all defend the rights of their members...Democracy, self government is a defensive form of social organization...Individualism is sold to people as empowering to them...It is not, because stripped of their community defense they are easy pickings to the very people who neglect their inividuality so they can cooperate in corporations, and rake the individual...Consider the poor farmers of England when the commons were closed... The commons were a social right that belonged no more to one than to all...When the many could no longer defend the right for their community, the most prosperous farmer ended up with all, and the whole community became so many individuals...That is when poverty first became a concern for England...It was slaughter... Whole generations came off the farms of England to live, if they could, as servants or service workers...These people, men and women never made enough in their life times to reproduce themselves, and others fresh off the farms stood ready to replace them when they fell down dead...As long as people are faced off against made collectives, as corporations are, they need to unite if they would resist...It is not a matter of choice, but is a choice made out of no choice, and necessity... People need defense, and really have no choice but destruction on the one hand, or community on the other...

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@Fido,

Fido;104784 wrote:

I am sure you do not quite get it... The object of the community is defense which is the same object our nation has... Every single one of these communities we hear of: the Jewish community, the gay community, or the black community all defend the rights of their members...Democracy, self government is a defensive form of social organization...Individualism is sold to people as empowering to them...It is not, because stripped of their community defense they are easy pickings to the very people who neglect their inividuality so they can cooperate in corporations, and rake the individual...Consider the poor farmers of England when the commons were closed... The commons were a social right that belonged no more to one than to all...When the many could no longer defend the right for their community, the most prosperous farmer ended up with all, and the whole community became so many individuals...That is when poverty first became a concern for England...It was slaughter... Whole generations came off the farms of England to live, if they could, as servants or service workers...These people, men and women never made enough in their life times to reproduce themselves, and others fresh off the farms stood ready to replace them when they fell down dead...As long as people are faced off against made collectives, as corporations are, they need to unite if they would resist...It is not a matter of choice, but is a choice made out of no choice, and necessity... People need defense, and really have no choice but destruction on the one hand, or community on the other...

You don't need to start off with condescension. That wasn't a very good touch.

I think you have a misunderstanding. Individualism does not reject community organization or collective defense. In fact, it doesn't reject the collective at all. Individualism simply holds that the rights and freedom of the individual is more valuable than the collectivist philosophy where the state or community ensures that the individual serves the whole of society in spite of their own desires.

1 Reply

@hue-man,

Surely the true collectivist has responded to the individual needs and respects their need. Most collective agreements have originated by seeing a need for the individual to be represented. We fall alone or stand united.

It requires the visionary individual to understand his power to make a collective stand. When the collective undermines the individual then the collective has become a need for other individuals to take up a collective response. That's life...one more glass of red and im ready for bed..

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@hue-man,

There is no "collective," since a collective is a shapeless undefined body of individuals. A collective is independent of the societal system. Justice cannot be applied to a society, only to its individuals. It is the individual we must protect and let flourish

1 Reply

@Camerama,

Camerama;104999 wrote:

There is no "collective," since a collective is a shapeless undefined body of individuals. A collective is independent of the societal system. Justice cannot be applied to a society, only to its individuals. It is the individual we must protect and let flourish

I agree with you about the value of the individual, but why would you say that there is no collective? A collective is a body of individuals living and cooperating under a common system or organization. Saying that there is no social collective is like saying that there is no biological body and only individual organs. Of course you are not a part of a social collective if you live in actual isolation.

---------- Post added 11-21-2009 at 07:26 PM ----------

xris;104950 wrote:

Surely the true collectivist has responded to the individual needs and respects their need. Most collective agreements have originated by seeing a need for the individual to be represented. We fall alone or stand united.

It requires the visionary individual to understand his power to make a collective stand. When the collective undermines the individual then the collective has become a need for other individuals to take up a collective response. That's life...one more glass of red and im ready for bed..

This still sounds like the individual is being valued more than the collective, which would mean that you're positing individualism. I don't think there's a way that both can be valued equally, though many democratic systems do combine both philosophies in the social contract.

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@hue-man,

Sorry i shouldve been more explicit. Of course a collective exists but it certainly does not have any rights, and it's interests are not to be served. The goal of government is the protection of individual interests.

1 Reply

@Camerama,

Camerama;105038 wrote:

Sorry i shouldve been more explicit. Of course a collective exists but it certainly does not have any rights, and it's interests are not to be served. The goal of government is the protection of individual interests.

I think, if it were laid out rationally, the goal of government as we have it is to build a larger nation out of many nations...Justice, tranquility, unity, defense, liberty are the worthy goals governments for all time...As Aristotle says in Politics, they are formed for good because good is the goal of every human activity...The conflict comes from the fact that to make one nation many nations must be destroyed, and the way that has been done from the start is for the state to treat everyone as a legal individual which negates the need for community self defense and control... But; it does not work...The action of law inhibit natural communities like the family who can no longer police their own, or demand their members fulfill their obligations to each other...It does not inhibit preditory communities like churches and institutions, which are all corporations, in every respect a legal individual, but without the consequences of individuals...The notion that communities conspired against the freedom of their own is trash...Primitives were more free in their communities than we are....We can do much, but much is also denied out of the concept that the people must be governed...In fact, primitive governmments worked to govern the circumstances of people's lives...Socialism says as much, that the means of production must be governed...Even as today, we build and maintain leves so that the flood plane has use, and the people have safety... If business, individuals, and the legal individuals of corporations- are left free to attack and devour society from the inside then it is these people who must be controlled... And look at us for our individuals... We make much of the beast but he is seldom seen... Rather, only in criminals is individualism fully presented...If that is so, where is a little of the poison safe???...

In prehistory, and history, the only safe place for individualism, like the individual himself was in the community where it, and he or she might find balance in perspective and in reality...The concept of our nation is a farce...We cannot build an all inclusive nation on the wreckage of so many nations...The truth is that we are very divided, and divided upon the same lines of race and culture as always, and less able than ever to find the essential unity every nation must possess to survive... Individualism as principal and as philosophy is killing us...Our enemies want nothing better than for us to stand alone so we can be picked off like so many roosting turkeys...Look about you...The smart people form relationships in order to accomplish their goals in life, and the dims all want to stand alone..Every single relationship on this earth demands a sacrifice, which is usually a sacrificce of a bit of our egos, our selves.... It is an intelligence test played out on a grand scale, and the evidence is there of our failure...

---------- Post added 11-22-2009 at 12:31 PM ----------

Camerama;104999 wrote:

There is no "collective," since a collective is a shapeless undefined body of individuals. A collective is independent of the societal system. Justice cannot be applied to a society, only to its individuals. It is the individual we must protect and let flourish

This is nonsense...Societies thrive on justice, and the whole object of primitive Moots, or Dooms, Things, or Councils was to find justice, as a community... People do not like feud, and all people everywhere who have not come through feuding societies are still living in them...But people recognize that feuds are a poor substitute for peace with justice, and that justice is essential to peace...The legal concept of the individual is very recent...While we tend to think about individuals as equal, natural law grew out of the Roman law of Nations which put forward the notion of the Equality of Nations...What we see, is that individuals have no more rights than they can defend, and that what makes communities is a common defense of rights... When the gays or women or blacks or working people make common cause for right, which is justice, they have formed a community...It is through these formed, or natural communities that all people have their rights, and find justice... The thought that individual must some how be in conflict with their is wrong because while primitives usually suffered threat on every side, no one in modern times, in the age of the individual is as free..And that is the problem...Our society allows communities, like corporations, institutions, and parties to to feed freely on natural communties and individuals... Most people calling for individual rights are absolutly correct in the observation that we have none of the rights we require... So the problem is not the community, but that we have failed to build a larger community after the destruction of our natual communities....If the noble savage was noble it was because of freedom and dignity coming out of a natural, communal defense of rights...

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@hue-man,

hue-man;104722 wrote:

At the beginning of my philosophic development, I leaned towards the side of collectivism. I now tend to lean towards the side of individualism.

Both individualism and collectivism entail and recognize each other. Collectivism values the worth of the collective or communal body more than the individual, while individualism values the worth and independence of the individual more than the collective good.

Is there anyway that these two philosophies can be reconciled? Is it possible to value the collective and the individual equally and still make philosophic sense? Does social contract theory borrow from both?

they can be reconciled whatever way we choose, according to our stage of development and even to suit it. but i think one of the points is that sometimes they are equal, and sometimes one or the other is more important, depending on the issues we face. i see everything as being relative and flexible, without discounting the fact that there are certain absolutes we can agree on as a base for any philosophic idea.

1 Reply

@salima,

salima;105244 wrote:

they can be reconciled whatever way we choose, according to our stage of development and even to suit it. but i think one of the points is that sometimes they are equal, and sometimes one or the other is more important, depending on the issues we face. i see everything as being relative and flexible, without discounting the fact that there are certain absolutes we can agree on as a base for any philosophic idea.

I could agree that there are no moral absolutes, but that does not mean we should be immoral...

1 Reply

@hue-man,

Saying there are no moral absolutes is a contradiction in itself

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@Fido,

Fido;105260 wrote:

I could agree that there are no moral absolutes, but that does not mean we should be immoral...

ah, but i actually said 'there are certain absolutes' without qualifying whether or not they would be considered moral absolutes or not. i didnt want to get bogged down in the mire of trying to draw lines here and there explaining what is and is not absolute or moral. to me morality is both relative and absolute, which is probably how i would qualify any other definition of ideas/ideals, such as justice, beauty, freedom.

in my opinion there is nothing in anyone's experience that substantiates or upholds being immoral whether they understand what it means or not. it can only come from an incomplete or mistaken understanding of life itself.

1 Reply

@salima,

salima;105313 wrote:

ah, but i actually said 'there are certain absolutes' without qualifying whether or not they would be considered moral absolutes or not. i didnt want to get bogged down in the mire of trying to draw lines here and there explaining what is and is not absolute or moral. to me morality is both relative and absolute, which is probably how i would qualify any other definition of ideas/ideals, such as justice, beauty, freedom.

in my opinion there is nothing in anyone's experience that substantiates or upholds being immoral whether they understand what it means or not. it can only come from an incomplete or mistaken understanding of life itself.

Okay...There are no abolutes of any sort in reality...All forms, or ideas are absoolutes unless they are conceptual manifolds... Love as a concept is absolutly love, but such an animal has never been captured...Definition is the job of philosophy, so I hope you do not shrink from your task...Consider buying a chalk line...
All of our social forms tend toward the absolute, and it is because of the way we think, of love, or good, or evil, or morality, or peace, or order; but to be happy one must accept life as it is, a mixture of meanings and values with no absolutes...Life is subjective, and it is our own lives we serve because it is all we know, and all we know with...

---------- Post added 11-23-2009 at 08:42 AM ----------

Camerama;105291 wrote:

Saying there are no moral absolutes is a contradiction in itself

Very observant Shirlock... In fact, all of our moral forms are absolutes, and yet, in reality, no absolute can be shown... Life is all mixed up, and we make sense of the mess by way of ideas, which are absolutes...Given the choice of a good lie or a complicated truth I will tell the good lie every time...

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@Camerama,

Camerama;105291 wrote:

Saying there are no moral absolutes is a contradiction in itself

I think that when most people say there are no moral absolutes they're saying that moral prescriptions are always subject to the circumstances that allow them to be viable and that morality does not transcendent human subjectivity.

1 Reply

@hue-man,

hue-man;105396 wrote:

I think that when most people say there are no moral absolutes they're saying that moral prescriptions are always subject to the circumstances that allow them to be viable and that morality does not transcendent human subjectivity.

What ever most people are saying; I am saying that all moral forms are infinites, and cannot be both infinite and absolute... And cam is correct that the statement is a moral judgement and framed as an absolute... So in a sense I lied, but it is easier to tell the truth with a fiction than with the truth, since, as there is no absolute truth the cause is lost at the gate, but if we admit that our case is impossible then we can paint our reality as hypothesis, or approximation, or as characature....I would say that allegories like Animal Farm, or Gullivars Travels, or the Wizard of Oz told truth better than the best histories of the age...If the truth is a lie because it is impossible to express, then it is more easily expressed without regard to truth as an absolute, as a gross mis-statement of fact...

Morality in the sense or morale, is the spirit of the community... That spirit needs to be healthy if the people within will survive their future...If the morals of a communty vary to some extent, they still approach an absolute meaning... Morals must feed the life of the people for the people to survive and for their morals to survive, so in this sense they have the same meaning as life itself, which is ALL meaning... Morals are subjective truth, and yet tend toward an objective truth...

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Reconciling the Divide Between Individualism and Collectivism

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