In sociopolitical thinking, individualism is the fundamental notion (invariably espoused by constitutions and human rights agreements) that every person should be treated equally as an individual person, and judged solely on personal merits, achievements, qualifications, opinions and actions. People should not be treated differently based on physical traits of that person that the person cannot help (unless the reason for differential treatment can be rationally justified, for example for medical reasons, such as giving special treatment to people with physical disabilities in certain situations, to help them get or achieve things that they normally would have difficulties with due to their physical disability.)
How this is usually worded (in things like human rights declarations) is that every person should be treated equally, and have the same rights, regardless of characteristics like age, sex, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, and so on and so forth. One example of this is hiring: People should be hired based on their qualifications, not based on, for instance, their race.
Collectivism, however, classifies people into groups based on those listed things (and often many other things), and assigns rights, privileges, responsibilities and guilt onto people based on which such group they belong to. Collectivism tends to be hierarchical in this sense, for instance assigning more rights and privileges to a person than to others, based on how many such groups that person belongs to (and how high in the "stack" those groups are). For example, collectivists might assign more rights and privileges to black lesbian disabled women than to, let's say, black heterosexual men, because the former people belong to more of the "oppressed" groups than the latter.
More fundamentally, to collectivists the most important characteristic of a person is which demographic group that person belongs to. Personal merits and achievements are only secondary (and often even ignored in many situations).
The differences between the two forms of thinking go in fact deeper than that.
Collectivists tend to think of those groups as completely homogeneous, not only in their physical characteristics and their status in society, but also in their thinking. In contrast, individualists recognize that people may have very different views, opinions and perspectives (besides knowledge and experience) even if they do happen to belong to the same demographic.
One situations where this comes up is the regressive leftist idea of "diversity is strength", for example in the context of the workplace. They seem to have this idea that if, let's say, a company consists solely of white people, it will be limited in their ideas, perspectives and views. Thus if they hire a lot of, for example, black people, they will start getting different and fresh ideas and perspectives, allowing them to diversify in their creativity and productivity.
That is not just an idea. It's an ideology. It's such a strong ideology that when, for example, the head of diversity at Apple (who happens to be a black woman) stated that there can be diversity even in a room full of white men, the regressive leftist mob got so angry that they bullied her to make a public apology.
That's right, the very idea that a group of white men could have a diversity of ideas and perspectives is so fundamentally offensive to the regressive left, that they can't stand it, and must bully and force the poor woman to retract what she said and issue and apology.
Collectivists not only divide people into groups based on gender, race and other such characteristics, assigning rights and privileges to people based on that, but they also think of them as a hive mind, as a homogeneous monolith that can only think in one way, and has only one perspective on things. And when somebody challenges this ideology, they get furious.
And no, it's not only white men that they think are like this. They think like this about all such groups. For instance, they simply can't stand it if, let's say, a black woman does not agree with their ideas, and criticizes them. They will furiously attack that person, and try to bully her into submission. A black woman cannot have independent, differing thoughts; she must submit to the collective, and think the same way as everybody else in the same group.
As said, individualists recognize that every person is different, and every person can have wildly different ideas, opinions and perspectives, regardless of their physical traits. A room full of white men can indeed be extremely diverse, in opinions, perspectives, and ideas, be their political, social, personal, or whatever. A room full of white men can be extremely diverse in their expertise, knowledge, strengths and weaknesses, qualifications, merits, and actions. And so can a room full of black women, or Mexicans, or whatever. It doesn't matter what their sex, ethnicity, or whatever may be, they are all individuals, and should be treated as such.
It seems to me that the only homogeneous hive mind collective is the regressive leftist social justice warriors. They are the ones that do not tolerate diversity, and will violently subjugate anybody who shows any independent thought, if it differs from the message of the collective.
How this is usually worded (in things like human rights declarations) is that every person should be treated equally, and have the same rights, regardless of characteristics like age, sex, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, and so on and so forth. One example of this is hiring: People should be hired based on their qualifications, not based on, for instance, their race.
Collectivism, however, classifies people into groups based on those listed things (and often many other things), and assigns rights, privileges, responsibilities and guilt onto people based on which such group they belong to. Collectivism tends to be hierarchical in this sense, for instance assigning more rights and privileges to a person than to others, based on how many such groups that person belongs to (and how high in the "stack" those groups are). For example, collectivists might assign more rights and privileges to black lesbian disabled women than to, let's say, black heterosexual men, because the former people belong to more of the "oppressed" groups than the latter.
More fundamentally, to collectivists the most important characteristic of a person is which demographic group that person belongs to. Personal merits and achievements are only secondary (and often even ignored in many situations).
The differences between the two forms of thinking go in fact deeper than that.
Collectivists tend to think of those groups as completely homogeneous, not only in their physical characteristics and their status in society, but also in their thinking. In contrast, individualists recognize that people may have very different views, opinions and perspectives (besides knowledge and experience) even if they do happen to belong to the same demographic.
One situations where this comes up is the regressive leftist idea of "diversity is strength", for example in the context of the workplace. They seem to have this idea that if, let's say, a company consists solely of white people, it will be limited in their ideas, perspectives and views. Thus if they hire a lot of, for example, black people, they will start getting different and fresh ideas and perspectives, allowing them to diversify in their creativity and productivity.
That is not just an idea. It's an ideology. It's such a strong ideology that when, for example, the head of diversity at Apple (who happens to be a black woman) stated that there can be diversity even in a room full of white men, the regressive leftist mob got so angry that they bullied her to make a public apology.
That's right, the very idea that a group of white men could have a diversity of ideas and perspectives is so fundamentally offensive to the regressive left, that they can't stand it, and must bully and force the poor woman to retract what she said and issue and apology.
Collectivists not only divide people into groups based on gender, race and other such characteristics, assigning rights and privileges to people based on that, but they also think of them as a hive mind, as a homogeneous monolith that can only think in one way, and has only one perspective on things. And when somebody challenges this ideology, they get furious.
And no, it's not only white men that they think are like this. They think like this about all such groups. For instance, they simply can't stand it if, let's say, a black woman does not agree with their ideas, and criticizes them. They will furiously attack that person, and try to bully her into submission. A black woman cannot have independent, differing thoughts; she must submit to the collective, and think the same way as everybody else in the same group.
As said, individualists recognize that every person is different, and every person can have wildly different ideas, opinions and perspectives, regardless of their physical traits. A room full of white men can indeed be extremely diverse, in opinions, perspectives, and ideas, be their political, social, personal, or whatever. A room full of white men can be extremely diverse in their expertise, knowledge, strengths and weaknesses, qualifications, merits, and actions. And so can a room full of black women, or Mexicans, or whatever. It doesn't matter what their sex, ethnicity, or whatever may be, they are all individuals, and should be treated as such.
It seems to me that the only homogeneous hive mind collective is the regressive leftist social justice warriors. They are the ones that do not tolerate diversity, and will violently subjugate anybody who shows any independent thought, if it differs from the message of the collective.
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