Is individualism universal?
How do you think about this question?
In some cultures family and community plays a much larger role than it does in our (and in our I mean all countries that have net access and a general population able to buy macs). It is even said that in some cultures there isn´t a word for "I" (meaning that the people have a hard time even grasping the idea of the individual). But does that mean that it should be accepted that individual rights less importent there? Please make arguments for you position.
In some cultures family and community plays a much larger role than it does in our (and in our I mean all countries that have net access and a general population able to buy macs). It is even said that in some cultures there isn´t a word for "I" (meaning that the people have a hard time even grasping the idea of the individual). But does that mean that it should be accepted that individual rights less importent there? Please make arguments for you position.
Comments
To elaborate.. a person generally wants to, and in some ways has a need to, feel part of the society they live in and so conform and fit in.
Take for example a persons style of clothing or the music that they listen to.
Their clothing is influenced in most part by what may be in fashion or what others in their group wear and in turn the style of music they listen to may influence the type of clothing they wear and the type of people they hang with. Therefore individualism does not really exist.
The other big picture is government and the way it views society.
I believe governments view their citizens as a whole and not as individuals so maybe individualism is not to be encouraged incase anarchy ensues (individuals who may not want to conform to society and therefore not pay taxes etc.) This is not to say that all governments think like this though communism as we know does not see individualism as a good thing.
soeey...i'm rambling...
I'm also drunk
But I was not aiming at a sociological answer, I am trained in that area. I was looking for principle/ideological answers to the question
Without emphasis on "I," humans revert to a tribal society, or a feudal society if they are lucky. Without the drive to succeed as an individual, and without the motivation to disagree with existing tennets, there is only stagnation.
But somehow I feel this whole thread is some kind of trick question.
I do think there is both good and bad in both individualism and collectivism. IMO, there's more conflict in collectivistic cultures - more tribalism and wars based on that tribalism. On the other hand, there's probably more alienation "I'll take what I can get and screw everyone else" in individualistic cultures.
I wonder - do individualistic cultures have suicide bombers?
But thats besides the point. with regards to colletivistic cultures I hear a lot of arguments go along the lines of:
-Its not a individual culture so colletive rights are more important than individual rights (something I hear a lot of people use about China)
-Noone asked (the individuals in the presumaly collective culture) if they wanted to have more individual freedom (implying that it would not be high on their list of priories).
What about arguemtns like that
Originally posted by Anders
How do you think about this question?
In some cultures family and community plays a much larger role than it does in our (and in our I mean all countries that have net access and a general population able to buy macs). It is even said that in some cultures there isn´t a word for "I" (meaning that the people have a hard time even grasping the idea of the individual). But does that mean that it should be accepted that individual rights less importent there? Please make arguments for you position.
This is a question that I love. A professor once told me that much of what we think about the self is bound up in a mistranslation of a Greek word (no idea how to spell it, but it's pronounced "hoop-uh-kamen-on") that means, basically, your innards and guts, into the Roman word for "Subject" (something thrown before).
My understanding is that the Greeks didn't really have the notion of "interiority" that we do. If you look at the Greek classics, people seem to be defined by what they do rather than through some kind of interior self.
I've argued for a while now that something significant happens in the 18th century (at least in English thinking on all of this). All at once, we have Hume and Locke working on the question of the self and memory and identity. We have the emergence of the novel as a new form of literature in English. We have the birth of the modern prison system. The Sensibility movement and Gothic literature emerge, and both are deeply concerned with understanding how people feel and react to strange situations.
We begin to see ourselves as a kind of narrative, as a story that's in the process of unfolding. As a novel. It's no coincidence, in the end, that the prison shifts from a punitive model to a reformative one (mostly through Quaker influence). If the self is a story, then the prison is where that narrative can be modified. It's no coincidence that as the psychology of the mind gets explored, people like Freud start to attend to the way that our individual "story" makes us what we are at any moment.
Okay let me be a bit more open.
If you believe that the rights of the individual is above that of the collective in our culture wont it have apply to people in other cultures as well?
When the chinese government argues that collective rights has priority over individual ones (as an example: in regards to the former one child policy) due to the culture won´t we who subscribe to individualism for ourselves have to say that there can´t be another set of rights for other individuals just because they live in another culture? Its okay for them to sacrifice their individuality but only if they have been their choice to make?
If individualism is only cultural then culture always have priority and our individual rights are only secured because our culture allows us to? As acultural liberal thats not satisfying for me. If I fight for the rights of homosexuals, immigrants etc. It´s impossible for me to lean back and say "Well those right are good for us but in China they have another culture and there the rights of the individual must respect the collective" because if I say so I also have to admit that my individual rights have to retreat if the mebers of my cultura wants them to.
I´m probably not making my arguments particularly clear tonight...
then again, i can't be sure even that i exist any more in the individual sense. argh.
Originally posted by Anders
Regard this not as a historic, philosophical or sociological question but an ideological one. If you believe that individual rights is above that of collective rights, does that also apply to individuals in cultures where collective rights is more dominant than individual ones?
That's a political question, at heart, and it's one that all cultures have to deal with. "What is the proper relationship between the individual and the state?"
I'm honestly not quite sure what you're asking. Are you asking, for instance, if I, personally, value individual rights over the collective, does my valuation still apply when I observe a culture that doesn't believe as I do? If that's the question, then the answer is "yes," since my position on all of this is a political one in the broad sense of politics as a view of the way the world ought to be.
Originally posted by midwinter
That's a political question, at heart, and it's one that all cultures have to deal with. "What is the proper relationship between the individual and the state?"
I'm honestly not quite sure what you're asking. Are you asking, for instance, if I, personally, value individual rights over the collective, does my valuation still apply when I observe a culture that doesn't believe as I do? If that's the question, then the answer is "yes," since my position on all of this is a political one in the broad sense of politics as a view of the way the world ought to be.
Thats the question I ask.
Originally posted by talksense101
Human beings need the illusion of individualism to satisfy their ego. Society requires that individuals make compromises to live together. There is no black and white answer.
"Ego," it seems to me, assumes that individualism is some kind of natural thing rather than a cultural construction.
I, me, mine. Yup, it's real!
Ayn Rand has written beautifully on the subject of the Individual verses the Collective. For those not inclined to read... listen to Rush...
uh, the band. (either, really.)
Originally posted by elppa cam
Ayn Rand has written beautifully on the subject of the Individual verses the Collective.
Well, let's just say that she's written about it.
Originally posted by midwinter
Well, let's just say that she's written about it.
"I" say she's written beautifully. Whom is "Let's"?
Originally posted by elppa cam
"I" say she's written beautifully. Whom is "Let's"?
A picture is not a novel. Ayn Rand was a terrible novelist. I tore Atlas Shrugged in half so I wouldn't have to carry around twice as much bullshit as I needed to.