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Using two opposite extremes, let's take Japan and America. In Japan, the collective is paramount, above all else. In America, it's the exact opposite, the individual is paramount, above all else. But for a healthy functioning society, what do you think is most important?
Using two opposite extremes, let's take Japan and America. In Japan, the collective is paramount, above all else. In America, it's the exact opposite, the individual is paramount, above all else. But for a healthy functioning society, what do you think is most important?
Like most things that are oversimplified in this forum, I'm not sure it's an either/or situation.
Instead of trying to look at a nation of 323 million, I tried to think about a smaller society -- the school where I was principal. When I first went there as a vice principal, we had a principal who was adamant about people all acting from the same page, even if they didn't all believe in that "same page". It was a rather stagnant environment. As a series of new principals came and went there was more open-thinking allowed, and as a result voices were heard that had silent in the past, and the school was no longer stagnant.
That's not to say the collective is unimportant. Any reasonable individual will understand that they benefit from others being well off as well. But the notion that there is some "ideal in-between" is, I'd argue, wrong. The individual is more important. The collective is important within the framework of the collective being a body of individuals, who individual well being must be viewed as paramount.
This is the primary (or real) difference between individualism and collectivism. The latter term is somewhat loaded, usually conjuring up images of left wing politics. But that's not very accurate. Plenty of left wing political groups are not collectivist in the slightest. Democratic Socialists, as an example, are often called collectivists by the political right wing, but this rarely what Democratic Socialists actually advocate for. They tend to support safety nets that simply take care of individuals; there's no "the whole is greater than the individual" involved.
Collectivism is truly a system in which the individual is unimportant. They are seen as a potentially expendable part of a whole, and the whole is all that matters. In Western society, collectivist thought is truly rare. Post-Enlightenment, the only consequential examples of collectivism can be seen with the rise of Communism and Fascism.
In simple terms, there's a difference between the concerns of everyone and the concerns of the whole. The latter is unconcerned with individual well being, and will happily do harm to people if it's for the benefit of the collective, whereas the former will not show that same readiness to do that.
This is one of the earliest themes of philosophy: organizing states, the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, what citizens have to be like for rule to be effective and how citizens can be made that way. It goes back at least to Plato (The Republic) and Aristotle (The Politics). Plato hypothesized an utopia and what citizens must be like to achieve it: no differentiation between men and women, no child-parent relationships, no private property. Aristotle took men as they are: possessive, warlike, imperfect and postulated a state that would both employ and ameliorate these traits so they could be used for the state's effectiveness.
People want to be individual but they also want to be citizens (be protected and social). The forms states took through history and in different places is testament to how difficult the problem is. It's especially difficult in a time of individualism, when a person is reluctant to place limits on his self-determination or assume a role assigned to him by society.
Using two opposite extremes, let's take Japan and America. In Japan, the collective is paramount, above all else. In America, it's the exact opposite, the individual is paramount, above all else. But for a healthy functioning society, what do you think is most important?
Both are important, and worth preserving. Even if the two might be opposites in some ways, the nations that can pull both together harmoniously will prevail. America started that way, with both approaches being held in value, and grew to prominence. But we've lost the true essence of both, and are in decay because of it.
For the collective, we have groups of shallow like-minded souls that prefer nationalistic tendencies and racism, for example. And for individualistic focuses, it's usually someone who is self-made and successful who wants to live in isolation and pool the gold for his or herself, for only their benefit. Much of the healthier aspects of collective and individual have been deluded and eroded over time. We've forgotten how the country started, and what used to be so important. We're sort of a shadow of what we once were.
It seems to me, it really comes down to history and geography. You provided excellent examples Japan and US.
The former is a homogenous nation, geographically isolated from the rest of the world cramped on a small place shaken by earthquakes every now and then. They had to learn how to rely on each other and tolerate one another. Simple survival. After 2011 tsunami we contacted our Japanese friend to see how he was. And he said something like - ok, Japan will survive this and we'll be better.
On the other hand, US is multiracial, multicultural society. People arrived one by one, family by family to settle on the big pieces of land. They grew to be protective of themselves, their family and their land, battling whoever else wanted their ranch or cattle. Urbanisation came later and only encouraged the atomization of the society. Of course, people are social animals, so they gathered in their churches, clubs and other organizations. Small towns became communities easier by their very nature. Still individualism is strong and if I asked anyone from Texas or Florida how he is - he won't tell me Oh, Texas or Florida will live. At least not before he tells me how he and family are.
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