Socialism (Moved from Grapes of Wrath)

No one is 'forcing' collectivism on all. If you choose not to live within the collective, live without it. It seems a bit disingenuous to want the best of both worlds, to cherry pick the benefits you want but expect not to be bound by or to be expected to contribute to those you don't care for.

Perhaps you could found your own society comprised of entirely like-minded people. We see something along these lines today in reports of some gated, mega-communities in which the poor and needy are excluded, ridding the wealthy residents of any social obligations toward the less advantaged. Social Darwinism behind high walls and secured gates.

The argument for individualism is betrayed when its advocates suggest it be the norm, something to be imposed on all.

No one is 'forcing' collectivism on all. If you choose not to live within the collective, live without it. It seems a bit disingenuous to want the best of both worlds, to cherry pick the benefits you want but expect not to be bound by or to be expected to contribute to those you don't care for.

"Buffoon" MFTP? Surely you're a bit better than that, aren't you?

The argument for individualism is betrayed when its advocates suggest it be the norm, something to be imposed on all.

Well then MFTP, I must defer to your obviously superior intellect. I wasn't actually referring to imposition of individualism but rather the values you two propound as fundamental to your concept of individualism. I wouldn't say you're a bufoon so much as hopelessly sophomoric.

You seem to believe that something or someone is preventing you from leaving the society whose norms and shared values you reject. You want to live within that society yet demand it dismantle the precepts you find to fetter your individualism. Why ought the many, who have worked, struggled to craft their society denude it because you find it chafing? You plainly enjoy their collective ways sufficiently to stay comfortably within their society so your complaints sound more than a bit petulant.

You seem to believe that something or someone is preventing you from leaving the society whose norms and shared values you reject. You want to live within that society yet demand it dismantle the precepts you find to fetter your individualism. Why ought the many, who have worked, struggled to craft their society denude it because you find it chafing? You plainly enjoy their collective ways sufficiently to stay comfortably within their society so your complaints sound more than a bit petulant.

I also imagine that none of the individualists here have an inherent moral issue with collectivism either, just as long as it is a matter of free individuals accepting the will of the whole as their own.

I don't think any of us accept it as being preferable, but wrong, not at all.

I consider collectivism morally wrong. For example universal health care. It's unfair to force the productive to pay large sums of their income and restrict their care to the same as everyone who doesn't pay into the system.

I'm a moral relativist, so I will never say that something is morally wrong. I may however say that something, to me, is unappealing, ugly, undesireable, etc. Statements such as those are not open for criticism, unless someone intends to prove that my personal preferences are not what I say they are. I find collectivism to be competely unappealing; I would also add the adjectives foul, vulgar, inhuman, pathetic, cowardly, weak, shameful, revolting, and desperate.

So, I want no part of it, I don't want anyone to impose it on me, I don't want it to be imposed on anyone else, but if someone wants to enter into a collectivist system voluntarily, I have no objection. But of course, real societies are never voluntary; that only works on a very small scale. And where are the voluntary communes from the sixties? They all dissolved because of the inherent problems of collectivism; people are individuals and cannot 'get along' as social engineers imagine.

So you wouldn't say it is immoral to force us all into the collective because making it voluntary doesn't work?

Why do you insist that collectivism is forceful?

Why do you insist that collectivism is forceful?

I wouldn't say it's immoral to bludgeon small children to death by throwing puppies at them at high speed (the puppies die too), but that doesn't mean I would do it myself, nor would I fail to beat the living shyte out of someone who I saw doing it. I just don't use the words moral and immoral. Morality is completely subjective and I won't claim to know 'the true morality' any more than I would claim to know 'the true faith' or the 'true philosophy' or what 'true art' is.

What I can say is that to me it's unpleasant and undesireable in the extreme, and also that it's unjust - according to my definition of justice. Even that is totally subjective. However, one criticism I can level against collectivism which is totally objective and demonstrable, is that it has failed miserably to achieve its own utopian goals every time it's tried.

If every member of the collectivist society has not volunteered to be a member, i.e. if not everyone is going to cooperate voluntarily, then it has to be forceful. The 'will of the majority' isn't enforced with candy and lolipops. Any sort of economic redistribution, central planning, etc. is always backed by the brute force of the police. Yes, that's right, the brute force of the police would be used in an ideal libertarian society as well, but only in response to violations of individual liberties (robbery e.g.), not in support of such violations.

I too am a moral relativist. But that still means I can have my morality, right? I don't claim to know the true morality, but I pick the best one for me.
So you don't even have your morality?