Why Do People Hate Individualism So Much?

Chapter 7.2: Hint: Some aren't being honest about the REAL reason…

Why this book | Title Page | Table of Contents
Preface | Introduction
PART 1
Chapter 1 (1.1) (1.2) | Chapter 2 (2.1) (2.2) (2.3) | Chapter 3 (3.1) (3.2) (3.3) (3.4) (3.5) (3.6)
PART 2
Chapter 4 (4.1) (4.2) (4.3) (4.4) (4.5) | Chapter 5 (5.1) (5.2) (5.3) (5.4) (5.5) (5.6) (5.7) (5.8) (5.9)
Chapter 6 (6.1) (6.2) (6.3) (6.4) (6.5)
PART 3
Chapter 7 (7.1) (7.2) | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14
PART 4
Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 |
PART 5
Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Conclusion
Appendix | Works Cited

7.2 — Opposition to individualism

Note: This is an installment of The Freedom Scale: An Accurate Measure of Left and Right. See here for installments of The Distributed Nation: A Plan for Human Independence.

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Opposition to individualism

None of this means that individualism opposes the existence of community or groups. Individualism does not mean “solitude.” It is not meant to separate individuals from each other, from God, or from their communities. Individualism simply recognizes that the individual is the locus of thought, choice, action, and experience—and thus, as we will discuss, the locus of rights. As such, the individual is the unit of society that requires moral protection.

This is more a matter of fact than of opinion: even if you decide that you must protect a “group,” the group does not experience or even recognize your protection. Only the individuals who comprise the group do.

Individualism’s opposite number is not community; it is collectivism. We will discuss the differences below, but in a nutshell…community is voluntary; collectivism is forced. Collectivism holds that the group is the base unit of society and that individuals are sub-units of the collective who must be forced to subordinate to the “will” of the collective.

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What’s in a Name?

Collectivism deems groups to be the unit of social organization and requires the individual participate in and subordinate himself to (what are deemed by some to be) the aims of that collective.

Community recognizes individuals to be the unit of social organization and welcomes the voluntary association of individuals for mutually desirable purposes.

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The fact that that “will” quite literally does not exist has done little to deter collectivist thinking, which has taken many forms and is still quite popular.

And yet when we look at results—not ideas, but how the ideas turn out in practice—we find that societies based on individualist principles have been far better protectors of human rights than societies based on collectivism. And the more collectivist the society, the worse its record has tended to be.

So why all the anger towards individualism? Most objections fall into three broad categories: