Collectivism vs Individualism

The ideological war we’re witnessing in America is as old as mankind. We’ve see the pattern played out over and over throughout history. Prosperous and powerful nations become corrupt and detached from principled moorings.

The people become complacent and restless. The disaffected rebel and rise up. Totalitarianism follows in a crackdown usually welcomed by those demanding an end to the chaos. There’s a period of darkness and evil, followed by spiritual renewal and renaissance. Then the prosperity period returns and the cycle repeats.

Embedded within these cycles is the war between collectivists and individualists. Under the umbrella of collectivism we find sub-systems such as socialism and communism. In short, the power of the collective, the state, rules all. This “it takes a village” collective mindset is firmly in control of American media, academia and increasingly, religion.

In practice, collectivism insists on putting people into groups by which it classifies those in the groups and insists on dealing with them, and controlling them, for the good of the collective. And the good of the collective is the responsibility of all. Collectivism would say I’m privileged because I’m white without regard to my life’s struggles or any knowledge of me whatsoever other than skin color.

Under individualism we find conservatives, libertarians and free-thinkers who place great value in personal responsibility, individual accomplishment and self-guided destiny. It insists on treating people as individuals who rise and fall in life according to their personal efforts and merits of their individual actions.

For individualism to succeed, it must have minimal outside interference and a societal playground that is open to all equally. Individualism states the sins and successes of a person are his or hers alone. And any sense of moral obligation to anyone else comes from foundations in faith or a higher moral authority directing us to be good to one another. The individualist would look at a person calling another privileged on the basis of skin color and consider it silly and quite racist before dismissing the opinion as irrelevant.

At the risk of bringing out crowds with pitchforks and torches, collectivism is evil and individualism is good. Why? Because God deals with us on an individual basis, a statement supported by most of the world’s religions in addition to the Bible.

We’re responsible for our own sins in God’s eyes. A son cannot be punished for the sins of a father, nor can a mother for the sins of a daughter. Yes, God has judged entire nations, but only when the extent of their people’s individual sins has become too great to avoid correction. Care is taken to rescue the innocent (Noah, Lot, Queen Ester, etc.)

Collectivism punishes and rewards groups without regard to individuals inside it who may differ with “the narrative”. In the process, innocent parties occasionally reap the wrath but that’s okay because it shows the collective’s commitment to its perception of justice while reinforcing it isn’t to be trifled with. Do so and you’ll be cancelled, fired, shamed into submission and ultimately destroyed. In short, collectivism enslaves and often does so to people who don’t realize they’re slaves until it’s too late. Then they must bend the knee or else.

Thinking people make poor slaves and their knees do not easily bend. Choose a side.