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> The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. This crisis has really made me po

> The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. This crisis has really made me ponder the extent to which individualism has taken its toll on the American society. Really, large parts of the country don't seem to care about the collective good and are just turning a blind eye toward their fellow citizens in this moment of crisis.

tetrometal 6y ago
Piggybacking on your comment to respond to the quote, not your interpretation... First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to). Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone.
- whytaka 6y ago
  > First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to). In an ironically cult like absolutism, you dismiss the moral discussion that transpired within Western philosophical traditions that debate this very topic - of Judeo-Christianity, of consequentialism. > Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone. This of course necessitates an elaboration on the word “should” in the context of a group of individualist agents where one chooses to not cooperate.
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    > In an ironically cult like absolutism, you dismiss the moral discussion that transpired within Western philosophical traditions that debate this very topic - of Judeo-Christianity, of consequentialism. There's a lot of this in online political discussion. Strident but, ah, let's say poorly sourced claims about ethics or morality, with whole castles of charmingly clear and straightforward political philosophy built atop them. I usually "nope" out when it looks like we might end up accidentally re-creating the "what is Justice?" dialogue from the beginning of Plato's Republic, but with only one of us realizing it, which is a situation that comes up pretty often, actually.
    - agustamir 6y ago
      Do you mind expanding on that a bit, such as what are the poorly sourced claims used as building blocks? When you talk about recreating the justice part, do you mean the discussion circles back to an already well-explored question?
- agustamir 6y ago
  > Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone I'm interested in exploring how/why or if at all, the zealous pursuit of one's individual rights have made us lose sight of working together for the benefit of everyone.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
It's interesting how the costs of collectivism are consistently pinned on individualism. We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves. It's a complete abdication of the role of the individual in being a force for good in the world, i.e. the opposite of individualism. And on the other side, individuals as members of large organizations are denied the ability to make positive change, because anyone close enough to the ground to see the problems is too far from the top to have the authority to do anything about them. Whereas if we actually had individual autonomy then people who see problems could fix them instead of standing around wishing somebody else would do what they would do if they were allowed to do it.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves. There hasn't been a time when "the individual" handled problems like a war or a massive pandemic. You "as an individual" haven't solved this mess and neither you nor I are going. I mean, I stop and help people broken down by the side of the road, I tell people what I think and what I think needs to be done. But that's individual initiative and it's not going to fix large problems. Large questions have always been handled by groups, informal groups or formal, either coming from society. When a society was too small scale to produce a large collective response to a problem, well it failed. Why large nations have replaced small tribes. It's true that today a lot of people view the government as a thing outside of themselves rather than a thing they create. But that's a slightly different problem.
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    Individualism, taken to anything like an extreme and as policy, can't even form something resembling a modern economy. It is, generously, an open question whether one can even do that without a state (less generously, it's not in any practical sense an open question, and no, you can't) and certainly you can't without forming some kind of bonds and structures that can force action of members against their immediate wishes, so there goes any high-purity individualism if you want... like, any stuff.
donatj 6y ago
I personally see collectivism as a vestigial trait some people are left with from a time when it actually mattered for survival. Studies have even shown it to be a largely genetic trait. When we lived in small tribes, the fate of the collective directly affected my ability to reproduce. Today, it makes very little difference, and is largely illogical. Call me a nihilist, but I don’t particularly care about people I don’t personally know. I honestly think it’s unhealthy to do so, particularly in the age of mass media. If you’re worried about 7 billion people you will never find happiness.
- nouveaux 6y ago
  Why not embrace both individualism and collectivism? Entrepreneurship and the military completely embodies this. We allow the individual to prosper and the collective pays to be protect us and our right to individually prosper. Arguing which one is better seems like arguing if the hammer or the screwdriver is bet. Why not treat individualism and collectivism as tools?
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    Agreed. Eventually the dispute comes to a head around issues like taxation. The argument is usually framed as such: "If one individual does not have the authority to take another's property, where does a group of individuals collectively source the authority to violently expropriate wealth from another individual?" There are various approaches to this. Some suggest that while the above is immoral, it is an inevitable function of political sausage making. Absolutists demand that it is entirely unacceptable in any amount and others propose that it should be tolerated, but minimized where possible. On the other end of the spectrum there are those who propose that the sum is greater than the whole. It is a tired discussion which has been hashed out in-depth elsewhere.
    - pg_1234 6y ago
      To "own" anything, everyone else needs to acknowledge your ownership ... get too greedy and the majority may suspend their granting of that acknowledged ownership ... just for you, everyone else continues along as before.
badrabbit 6y ago
Let me ask you and the HN crowd this: Would it honestly be incorrect to blame secularism for this? If it inconveniences me, why should I care at all if my actions negatively affect absolutley anyone given my belief is that my existence has no purpose outside of what I conveniently define, life is meaningless outside of my self-defined meaning and there is no authority that can define what is a correct or incorrect way of living. In other words, like you observed I also think the moral foundations are failing. Why should groups of people accept each other as equally created and endowed with equal rights? Why should young people be inconvenienced to maybe save lives of older people by wearing masks? Empathy? Life has no meaning, they're gonna die anyway. Why emphatize with others at all? Why not focus on whatever leads to the best experience in this life for each individual, where there are conflicts let the strongest win. Nature has no mercy on the weak. Of course I don't believe any of that but am I wrong to think secularism plays a big role in the lack of empathy? Now before anyone reaches for their pitchforks, I am not saying religion is the solution or somehow all those religious people supporting terrible people to advance their agenda don't exist. I am saying, what a society finds correct and acceptable sets the tone. Even religious people act secular when it is convenient because society is secular and the ones that want popularity over authenticity will always be mallable enough to adopt to what society thinks is normal (consider how the nazis claimed to be Christians and killed jews, their actions override their claims). Let me rephrase a bit, foudnationally the social majority in america,despite all the terrible things that went on believed there is a purpose to life and you have to seek it. They also believed people have an origin and destination and that correct behavior in this life is critical, living incorrectly means failure in realizing the purpose of your existence or worse , regardless of popularity humans have limited and finite authority over other humans, that morality was not a suggestion but an implicit realization of the creator's will (or of the "universe" or whatever intelligent origin people believed in) ,a human's life is precious because it has meaning and purpose, and others' experience of pain morally bounds all other humans to apply emphatetic reasoning in their reaction. I am not neccesarily saying lack of religion is the cause. I am asking, given the facts, is it far fetched to consider embracing of secular individualism as the root cause? And I don't mean by any end of the political spectrum(left/right). I mean across the board,anyone that effectively beliefs they define their own morality as they see it fit to benefit themselves. And as the saying goes "a thief thinks everyone else is also a thief", they have all these conspiracies that the media or the deepstate is out to get them because that's exactly what they would do to advance their self-centered ideology. I am emploring you to critically consider that perhaps effective secualrim (even among those that don't claim to be secular) that puts individuals at the center of their own universe might be the cause. Humans are interesting creatures, weirdly with the exception of the vocal minority, people that are secular by default have in my experience been very emphatetic, I am not sure if they will remain the same but I think initially most mentally healthy people want to stop the pain of others because they experienced pain themselves and they wanted someone to help them, therefore doing to others what you would want done to you is implicitly a correct way of living. I suspect secular-individualism contradicts that reasoning when helping others entails inconvenience or having to pay a sacrifice. This is an important question because much of democracy and america assume the majority will have empathy for the minority (which is how slavery ended and civil rights laws that benefited the minority were passed). Another contributor might be how rapid advance of technology might be the driver of self-centered ideologies that lack empathy. But I hope people continue to appreciate peace and be open to any truth.

tetrometal 6y ago

Piggybacking on your comment to respond to the quote, not your interpretation... First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to). Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone.

whytaka 6y ago
> First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to). In an ironically cult like absolutism, you dismiss the moral discussion that transpired within Western philosophical traditions that debate this very topic - of Judeo-Christianity, of consequentialism. > Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone. This of course necessitates an elaboration on the word “should” in the context of a group of individualist agents where one chooses to not cooperate.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  > In an ironically cult like absolutism, you dismiss the moral discussion that transpired within Western philosophical traditions that debate this very topic - of Judeo-Christianity, of consequentialism. There's a lot of this in online political discussion. Strident but, ah, let's say poorly sourced claims about ethics or morality, with whole castles of charmingly clear and straightforward political philosophy built atop them. I usually "nope" out when it looks like we might end up accidentally re-creating the "what is Justice?" dialogue from the beginning of Plato's Republic, but with only one of us realizing it, which is a situation that comes up pretty often, actually.
  - agustamir 6y ago
    Do you mind expanding on that a bit, such as what are the poorly sourced claims used as building blocks? When you talk about recreating the justice part, do you mean the discussion circles back to an already well-explored question?
agustamir 6y ago
> Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone I'm interested in exploring how/why or if at all, the zealous pursuit of one's individual rights have made us lose sight of working together for the benefit of everyone.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

It's interesting how the costs of collectivism are consistently pinned on individualism. We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves. It's a complete abdication of the role of the individual in being a force for good in the world, i.e. the opposite of individualism. And on the other side, individuals as members of large organizations are denied the ability to make positive change, because anyone close enough to the ground to see the problems is too far from the top to have the authority to do anything about them. Whereas if we actually had individual autonomy then people who see problems could fix them instead of standing around wishing somebody else would do what they would do if they were allowed to do it.

joe_the_user 6y ago
We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves. There hasn't been a time when "the individual" handled problems like a war or a massive pandemic. You "as an individual" haven't solved this mess and neither you nor I are going. I mean, I stop and help people broken down by the side of the road, I tell people what I think and what I think needs to be done. But that's individual initiative and it's not going to fix large problems. Large questions have always been handled by groups, informal groups or formal, either coming from society. When a society was too small scale to produce a large collective response to a problem, well it failed. Why large nations have replaced small tribes. It's true that today a lot of people view the government as a thing outside of themselves rather than a thing they create. But that's a slightly different problem.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  Individualism, taken to anything like an extreme and as policy, can't even form something resembling a modern economy. It is, generously, an open question whether one can even do that without a state (less generously, it's not in any practical sense an open question, and no, you can't) and certainly you can't without forming some kind of bonds and structures that can force action of members against their immediate wishes, so there goes any high-purity individualism if you want... like, any stuff.

donatj 6y ago

I personally see collectivism as a vestigial trait some people are left with from a time when it actually mattered for survival. Studies have even shown it to be a largely genetic trait. When we lived in small tribes, the fate of the collective directly affected my ability to reproduce. Today, it makes very little difference, and is largely illogical. Call me a nihilist, but I don’t particularly care about people I don’t personally know. I honestly think it’s unhealthy to do so, particularly in the age of mass media. If you’re worried about 7 billion people you will never find happiness.

nouveaux 6y ago
Why not embrace both individualism and collectivism? Entrepreneurship and the military completely embodies this. We allow the individual to prosper and the collective pays to be protect us and our right to individually prosper. Arguing which one is better seems like arguing if the hammer or the screwdriver is bet. Why not treat individualism and collectivism as tools?
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Agreed. Eventually the dispute comes to a head around issues like taxation. The argument is usually framed as such: "If one individual does not have the authority to take another's property, where does a group of individuals collectively source the authority to violently expropriate wealth from another individual?" There are various approaches to this. Some suggest that while the above is immoral, it is an inevitable function of political sausage making. Absolutists demand that it is entirely unacceptable in any amount and others propose that it should be tolerated, but minimized where possible. On the other end of the spectrum there are those who propose that the sum is greater than the whole. It is a tired discussion which has been hashed out in-depth elsewhere.
  - pg_1234 6y ago
    To "own" anything, everyone else needs to acknowledge your ownership ... get too greedy and the majority may suspend their granting of that acknowledged ownership ... just for you, everyone else continues along as before.

badrabbit 6y ago

Let me ask you and the HN crowd this: Would it honestly be incorrect to blame secularism for this? If it inconveniences me, why should I care at all if my actions negatively affect absolutley anyone given my belief is that my existence has no purpose outside of what I conveniently define, life is meaningless outside of my self-defined meaning and there is no authority that can define what is a correct or incorrect way of living. In other words, like you observed I also think the moral foundations are failing. Why should groups of people accept each other as equally created and endowed with equal rights? Why should young people be inconvenienced to maybe save lives of older people by wearing masks? Empathy? Life has no meaning, they're gonna die anyway. Why emphatize with others at all? Why not focus on whatever leads to the best experience in this life for each individual, where there are conflicts let the strongest win. Nature has no mercy on the weak. Of course I don't believe any of that but am I wrong to think secularism plays a big role in the lack of empathy? Now before anyone reaches for their pitchforks, I am not saying religion is the solution or somehow all those religious people supporting terrible people to advance their agenda don't exist. I am saying, what a society finds correct and acceptable sets the tone. Even religious people act secular when it is convenient because society is secular and the ones that want popularity over authenticity will always be mallable enough to adopt to what society thinks is normal (consider how the nazis claimed to be Christians and killed jews, their actions override their claims). Let me rephrase a bit, foudnationally the social majority in america,despite all the terrible things that went on believed there is a purpose to life and you have to seek it. They also believed people have an origin and destination and that correct behavior in this life is critical, living incorrectly means failure in realizing the purpose of your existence or worse , regardless of popularity humans have limited and finite authority over other humans, that morality was not a suggestion but an implicit realization of the creator's will (or of the "universe" or whatever intelligent origin people believed in) ,a human's life is precious because it has meaning and purpose, and others' experience of pain morally bounds all other humans to apply emphatetic reasoning in their reaction. I am not neccesarily saying lack of religion is the cause. I am asking, given the facts, is it far fetched to consider embracing of secular individualism as the root cause? And I don't mean by any end of the political spectrum(left/right). I mean across the board,anyone that effectively beliefs they define their own morality as they see it fit to benefit themselves. And as the saying goes "a thief thinks everyone else is also a thief", they have all these conspiracies that the media or the deepstate is out to get them because that's exactly what they would do to advance their self-centered ideology. I am emploring you to critically consider that perhaps effective secualrim (even among those that don't claim to be secular) that puts individuals at the center of their own universe might be the cause. Humans are interesting creatures, weirdly with the exception of the vocal minority, people that are secular by default have in my experience been very emphatetic, I am not sure if they will remain the same but I think initially most mentally healthy people want to stop the pain of others because they experienced pain themselves and they wanted someone to help them, therefore doing to others what you would want done to you is implicitly a correct way of living. I suspect secular-individualism contradicts that reasoning when helping others entails inconvenience or having to pay a sacrifice. This is an important question because much of democracy and america assume the majority will have empathy for the minority (which is how slavery ended and civil rights laws that benefited the minority were passed). Another contributor might be how rapid advance of technology might be the driver of self-centered ideologies that lack empathy. But I hope people continue to appreciate peace and be open to any truth.