This is a reply to a discussion about individualism from the Mueller thread. If we're going to talk about it, it's really too OT to discuss there.
No, that's not really true. I think you're confusing some things. The system I have faith in has nothing to do with group identity or not group identity. Also, group identity as little to do with group rights, other than who is fighting over the stick to control laws that people have to obey. The system I'm saying I have faith in is the system the founders put together. Group identity is not a system. Our governing principles laid out in our constitution favors individual rights over group rights. THAT'S the system I have faith in. To be clear, I'm not talking about nor advocating "hyper individualism".
Well yeah, those are attributes common to many or even most Americans historically. I'm not saying we didn't have that. But historically it has not been a single homogeneous identity. From the earliest settlers on, America has been as culturally diverse as the nations people immigrated from. Clearly there isn't just one American identity. I will grant you that as generations merged from diverse cultures, the melting pot of various cultural identities blended into a more common general American ethos shared by most but not all Americans. That's not the same as a single identity. I'm not saying there isn't something like a national identity, or even that having a national identity is wrong. I'm saying that we're diverse enough that you can't just say that "American" identity is all the attributes you're rolling up into just that one identity.
Individuals are real entities. Group identities are social constructs. Individuals have various attributes, some of which are common to other individuals. They ARE individual traits, that may be shared by many people in a group sense. But a group is a collection of individuals.
Individuals can belong to any number of identity groups. You can be in the white group. The American group. The Indiana citizen group. The gun owner group. The gamer group. All at the same time. And you can feel a sense of loyalty to any or all or none of them. But they're kinda arbitrary in that you can decide which attributes you choose to identify with.
As an individual, I belong to some groups. Some are grouped by physical attributes, or philosophical attributes, or national attributes. Sports team. Occupation. Grouping by shared attributes and assigning a priority to those attributes such that the group becomes one's identity, is a psychological and social construct. Contrast that with your individual nature. You're a real, living, biological person, operating in the world, and self-aware. Identity groups are mere constructs, only as real as that the grouping of shared attributes. May feel real. But isn't.
If I say I'm an individualist first, that's not a binary statement where it must mean that I deny the existence of the group, or that I belong to any groups. It means that in terms of rights, individual rights have priority over group rights. My individual right to do what I want with my own income, for example, supersedes the collectivists' proposed group right to health care, or education. Or to ban stuff. Those are group rights. Group rights effectively distill to government power.
I think you're confused about what individualism is, and what collectivism is. Individualism isn't anything like postmodern intersectional feminism, which seems more like what you are describing. Individualism, by definition, is not camps or classes of people. That's collectivism.
Banning stuff is a good example of a group right. Actually, I'm of the philosophical bent which says that there's no such thing as group rights, that those are actually group powers, because they're enforced by the power of the group, whether a representative government, or a mob of angry identitiarian **********s doxxing people and trying to get them canceled. Either way, the group asserts authority over the individual to do things like banning stuff. Respecting neighbors' rights is an individualist trait. So, banning stuff, the group says that something is harmful, and then uses the power of the group to free itself, as a group, from that perceived harm. Safety over liberty is a collectivist vs individualist battle.
"Our group identity was rugged individualism." Yes. You actually said that. I'm not forgetting that there is an American ethos inherited through the generations from hard working, self-sufficient, responsible individuals. But it's not individualism which results in direct democracy. First, hyper-individualism is essentially the same thing as anarco-capitalism. That isn't anything close to direct democracy. Second, I am not an advocate for hyper-individualism. I recognize that humans naturally form groups and have tribal kinds of group loyalty. But since the Enlightenment, in the West we've discovered that a society ordered by the primacy individual rights over group rights is a better society.
To be clear, when I say individual rights, I'm saying it in a John Locke sense, where natural rights are not just what rulers allow us to do, but are inherent in human beings, derived from our desire towards self-determination and self-preservation. In contrast, a group rights are essentially oppressive to the individuals who disagree with one or more tenants of the group. Like the banning stuff example above.
Today you might say "rugged individualism" is a sort of American an identity, and that's true at least a little. But not at first. It's not like the first settlers joined the rugged individualist club and then decided to be rugged, and individual. It was just a way of life that was inherited by its posterity, and became more of a way that such people understood each other, and then formed an identity later.
It's also true that that way of life is being replaced by a newer postmodern ethos where the primacy of different identities from the traditional American ones is being favored. The result is the cultural war between the former (rugged individualist ethos) and the latter (postmodern ethos). And that the latter is indeed a group identity based ethos. There are three entities kinda duking it out. There's a left left wing identitarian sect, a right wing identitarian sect (alt-right), and then there are the few individualists left who just want to keep the individual rights based constitution.
Getting a little OT, but the main problem is that we have a pretty broad division now, and we have essentially two worldviews fighting over how to order society. Those worldviews are inherently incompatible, so it's not like we can satisfy both by compromise. We're past that. Society can't be ordered by both the group and the individual. It's one or the other.
The system I have faith in is the system which primarily favors individual rights over group rights. I think eventually we'll win. Our subsystems (voting, higher courts, etcetera) may need tweaking to protect us from the mob. But it seems evident that people prefer free societies when they fully understand both.
This is where I think you actually have it backwards. Hyper individualism is what spawned the left wing of the current time period that has progressed out of the 60s drug binge.
No, that's not really true. I think you're confusing some things. The system I have faith in has nothing to do with group identity or not group identity. Also, group identity as little to do with group rights, other than who is fighting over the stick to control laws that people have to obey. The system I'm saying I have faith in is the system the founders put together. Group identity is not a system. Our governing principles laid out in our constitution favors individual rights over group rights. THAT'S the system I have faith in. To be clear, I'm not talking about nor advocating "hyper individualism".
What we had before was a group identity of Americans, hard working, faithful, and above all else committed to our own people and our own goals.
Well yeah, those are attributes common to many or even most Americans historically. I'm not saying we didn't have that. But historically it has not been a single homogeneous identity. From the earliest settlers on, America has been as culturally diverse as the nations people immigrated from. Clearly there isn't just one American identity. I will grant you that as generations merged from diverse cultures, the melting pot of various cultural identities blended into a more common general American ethos shared by most but not all Americans. That's not the same as a single identity. I'm not saying there isn't something like a national identity, or even that having a national identity is wrong. I'm saying that we're diverse enough that you can't just say that "American" identity is all the attributes you're rolling up into just that one identity.
These are not individualist traits.
Individuals are real entities. Group identities are social constructs. Individuals have various attributes, some of which are common to other individuals. They ARE individual traits, that may be shared by many people in a group sense. But a group is a collection of individuals.
Individuals can belong to any number of identity groups. You can be in the white group. The American group. The Indiana citizen group. The gun owner group. The gamer group. All at the same time. And you can feel a sense of loyalty to any or all or none of them. But they're kinda arbitrary in that you can decide which attributes you choose to identify with.
As an individual, I belong to some groups. Some are grouped by physical attributes, or philosophical attributes, or national attributes. Sports team. Occupation. Grouping by shared attributes and assigning a priority to those attributes such that the group becomes one's identity, is a psychological and social construct. Contrast that with your individual nature. You're a real, living, biological person, operating in the world, and self-aware. Identity groups are mere constructs, only as real as that the grouping of shared attributes. May feel real. But isn't.
If I say I'm an individualist first, that's not a binary statement where it must mean that I deny the existence of the group, or that I belong to any groups. It means that in terms of rights, individual rights have priority over group rights. My individual right to do what I want with my own income, for example, supersedes the collectivists' proposed group right to health care, or education. Or to ban stuff. Those are group rights. Group rights effectively distill to government power.
Individualism falls into the trap of creating as many camps and classes as possible, dividing the population as far as possible, and banning everything that offends us instead of respecting our neighbor's rights.
I think you're confused about what individualism is, and what collectivism is. Individualism isn't anything like postmodern intersectional feminism, which seems more like what you are describing. Individualism, by definition, is not camps or classes of people. That's collectivism.
Banning stuff is a good example of a group right. Actually, I'm of the philosophical bent which says that there's no such thing as group rights, that those are actually group powers, because they're enforced by the power of the group, whether a representative government, or a mob of angry identitiarian **********s doxxing people and trying to get them canceled. Either way, the group asserts authority over the individual to do things like banning stuff. Respecting neighbors' rights is an individualist trait. So, banning stuff, the group says that something is harmful, and then uses the power of the group to free itself, as a group, from that perceived harm. Safety over liberty is a collectivist vs individualist battle.
Our group identity was rugged individualism, yes, but it was a group identity, don't forget that. We shared that. This may be tangential to your point but it's an important thing to remember.
Hyper individualism always results in direct democracy, because the individual thinks they are more important than the next person. And direct democracy results in voting yourself more money from your neighbor's wallet, because after all, you're more important than they are, and can better make use of it.
"Our group identity was rugged individualism." Yes. You actually said that. I'm not forgetting that there is an American ethos inherited through the generations from hard working, self-sufficient, responsible individuals. But it's not individualism which results in direct democracy. First, hyper-individualism is essentially the same thing as anarco-capitalism. That isn't anything close to direct democracy. Second, I am not an advocate for hyper-individualism. I recognize that humans naturally form groups and have tribal kinds of group loyalty. But since the Enlightenment, in the West we've discovered that a society ordered by the primacy individual rights over group rights is a better society.
To be clear, when I say individual rights, I'm saying it in a John Locke sense, where natural rights are not just what rulers allow us to do, but are inherent in human beings, derived from our desire towards self-determination and self-preservation. In contrast, a group rights are essentially oppressive to the individuals who disagree with one or more tenants of the group. Like the banning stuff example above.
Today you might say "rugged individualism" is a sort of American an identity, and that's true at least a little. But not at first. It's not like the first settlers joined the rugged individualist club and then decided to be rugged, and individual. It was just a way of life that was inherited by its posterity, and became more of a way that such people understood each other, and then formed an identity later.
It's also true that that way of life is being replaced by a newer postmodern ethos where the primacy of different identities from the traditional American ones is being favored. The result is the cultural war between the former (rugged individualist ethos) and the latter (postmodern ethos). And that the latter is indeed a group identity based ethos. There are three entities kinda duking it out. There's a left left wing identitarian sect, a right wing identitarian sect (alt-right), and then there are the few individualists left who just want to keep the individual rights based constitution.