I quote from a piece about Ayn Rand: She too, foresaw a sclerotic and decadent United States in which individualism, excellence, and market forces were subjected to collectivist views of equity and “fairness.” Is there no point of compromise between Rand's idea of extreme individualism and the gray, oppressive equality of Communism? Likewise, is fairness so poisonous an idea that the market can have none of it? Ideologies, political or religious, tempt us with their purity. I propose that when ideas are expressed only in their extremes that they drift away from sanity. This isn't my original idea but I forget who first described it. Comments, please.
When we look at individualism we are looking at the significance of one person. Tribalism, communism et al only takes in the significance as it is applied to the group or state. One’s very identity is dependent upon the ability to aspire, succeed and inspire as his own abilities, needs and drive will allow. Adversely, when one loses his or her own identity and is only known by the properties significant to a group, all need to be individually unique gives way to “ant hill” mentality. Are there pro’s and con’s to both? Sure there is. As a small example: There has to be rules, ethics and morals that a society as a whole can live with. Individual ethics have to give way for the better good of the whole.
Individualism is not easily destroyed, even under totalitarian systems. The hundreds of millions living under USSR communism held onto its tatters by disbelief, solidarity , private worship and humor. They had to be outwardly obedient but inwardly they resisted. How could the Russian Orthodox Church's tenets have survived 70 years of repression intact if this weren't so? I think that once any collectivist system falls, individuality will resurface spontaneously. I think we are born for freedom. Too idealistic? I have trouble sometimes separating what I really believe from what I want to believe. It's confusing.
You can say that again. This is one of those rare moments where someone who obviously has not lived in such a system acknowledges that. Very rare. What we usually hear is that people without personal experience simply contend that all people living in a totalitarian/communist system without exception have been indoctrinated and will never ever be able to overcome that alleged indoctrination. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people don't know the first thing about what's really happening in a dictatorship. All they are interested in is spreading stereotypes and misinforming (yes, indoctrinating) other people with their crude and simplistic ideas.