Individualism
Individualism is about the rights of the individual contra the interests of the collective, no matter if that collective is ruled by this or that group.
In our history individual rights were always strongly repressed and the collective was the important social unit.
The social unit, the social group, has shrunk, from villages to big families, to small families, to individuals.
In modern times the individual has become rights, like women got rights to vote, not because we needed the women to vote, but because they are seen as
individuals, persons with other qualities than being able to cook food and have babies. You know, women are actually persons, just like us, each with her own mind and her own ideas, and she may want to live her life after her own mind.
Earlier a soldier was only a soldier, always in duty. Today a soldier (in Europe) has a right to a life of his own, and he only works as a soldier, he has
individual rights and he is recognized as a thinking person, besides being a soldier.
The new "flex-time" system, which means you can be at your workplace at what time you feel like in the morning, is an adjustment of the workplaces to the new
individualism ideals in the modern society. The right for women to choose for themselves if she is having an abortion is also a sign of the individualism.
Earlier some powerful guy decided over her body, a priest for example.
Now it is also getting more and more usual to work at home, or wherever you prefer to be.
Women have gotten a lot more rights in the marriage too, earlier she was more seen as the property of the husband, and she had no rights at all.
Children have also gotten a lot of rights in the modern society which they never had before.
Mens rights have of course also changed, it just shows even better when looking at women and children. This is the new individualism, more rights to the individual,
to think and speak as they wish, to shape their life after their own mind, to participate in the discussions in society.
The collective must have strong rules in times of need or danger, but in our modern time there is no scarcity of food and no enemy which is going to attack us
tomorrow, we can afford more rights to the individual, we can afford higher ideals, more freedom for the individual, than we could afford on a
ship in storm.
The Law.
The laws were earlier primarily there to protect the rich guys property and keep the calm in the society. In the modern world the law is also there to protect
the individual, and the democratic system. I would rather rely on a national or global law aboutthe rights of an individual than on the vigilante in the neighborhood.
The laws are finely tuned and pondered by a lot of intelligent and knowledgeble people who try to think about the best ethical ideals they can find.
(besides considering the interests of the rich) The intellectual resources of a whole country is needed to rinse out local views which are contrary to the
national or globally accepted ideals. And my ideals.
Let us say they still had slaves in southern USA today. Then you would probably like the idea of people in. Washington or the UN telling the southerners that you
have to abolish this slavery system, we don't accept it. Free the slaves or we will free them.
Local laws may reflect all kinds of preconceptions and stupid ideas. I would not like to live in a world ruled by some
gossiping old hags in the block where I live. That would be close to the block system they have used in
China for a long time, and we all have seen the pictures of repenting citizens being chastised by the
other block citizens for have bad morals or whatever.
If these anti-state, anti-government guys got their ideal society it would look very much like this
"chinese" system. That is what happens when you divide the world up into small, independent local villages.
This is what syndicalists and many others leftists argue for, when they talk about the local society, the
commune.
I prefer the modern world, where the whole planet is one big family. We can help each other with so much,
especially in the intellectual field, there is no reason to divide the world up into small parts. Besides
being totally against the movement of history it would isolate us and make us all the poorer, intellectually
as well as economically.
I think this "local society" is a desperate idea for people who are scared by the complexity in the modern
society, they look for simple solutions so the want a smaller scale to think at. The solution is not to make the world smaller but to
make our brains better, by discussions between us.
My perspective:
I am using a modern industrialized perspective, because the industrialized world is ruling the planet, it is here we need to convince the people to choose utopia
instead of capitalism. Here do we have the tools we need, democracy, communications, people with free time for political discussions, etc..
Here is the administration for this planet, it is here we have to change things, primarily.
The third world will soon look very much like us, and our utopia will make it a lot easier to give them a better world, utopia takes away the global monetary
system, which opresses the third world. There is an indian proverb: "If you want to lead a cow you need to take hold of the horns, not the tail."
This is why I use the modern industrialized perspective, this is where it happens, the rest of the world will follow.
II am just as sad as everybody else that a number of workers were burned alive when an industry in India caught fire last week. They were locked in, as slaves,
so they died. There is a lot of political work to be done in many parts of the world. But I find it more useful to concentrate on the ordered society of western Europe and other highly developed nations, and I describe how easy it would be to change over to the utopia system in such countries. Other may criticize that and say I am not recognizing the problems in other parts of the world.
My answer:
I am leading this cow by the horns, others will take care of the body and the tail.
We will all have to discuss issues, (like how to organize distribution) instead of some rich guy or some other powerful people deciding the issues for us.
They are taking the decisions for us, they have done that for thousands of years. Now it is time for the people to take over that decision making
process, and we can only do that by discussing the practical issues, until we agree upon a solution and can realize it.
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