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Individualism vs. Collectivism

Individualism versus collectivism refers to whether individuals prioritize themselves or their group. Individualism views each person as separate making their own choices, while collectivism sees the group as primary and individuals as members serving the group. Examples of individualism include Germany and the United States, where personal achievement and individual rights are stressed. Examples of collectivism include Guatemala, where strong family ties and loyalty to the group are valued over individual interests.

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Flori de Câmp
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77 views4 pages

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Individualism versus collectivism refers to whether individuals prioritize themselves or their group. Individualism views each person as separate making their own choices, while collectivism sees the group as primary and individuals as members serving the group. Examples of individualism include Germany and the United States, where personal achievement and individual rights are stressed. Examples of collectivism include Guatemala, where strong family ties and loyalty to the group are valued over individual interests.

Uploaded by

Flori de Câmp
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Individualism Vs.

Collectivism

There are two basic ways of understanding the relationship between


individuals in a group. The first way is individualism, which states that each
individual is acting on his or her own, making their own choices, and to the
extent they interact with the rest of the group, it's as individuals. Collectivism is
the second way, and it views the group as the primary entity, with the
individuals lost along the way.

Objectivism supports individualism in this sense. In a different sense,


individualism is meant to be whether the individual is different from everyone
else, or whether he makes up his own mind about things, or what-not. But in
the individualist-collectivist sense of the term, individualism just means that
the individual is a separate entity, making his own choices, thinking his own
thoughts, and responsible for his own choices.

Collectivism views it in some other way. It sees the group as the important
element, and individuals are just members of the group. The group has its
own values somehow different from those of the individual members. The
group thinks its own thoughts. Instead of judging the group as a bunch of
individuals interacting, it judges the group as a whole, and views the
individuals as just members of the group.

Collectivism might sound strange at first. I've known people who reject it as a
straw man, a made up argument that's easy to attack. So let's give some
reasons why people might accept it.

First, there's knowledge. Think about it in a few ways. First, how much of what
you know did you learn from other people? That's taken to mean that nobody
is truly an individual. Second, when coming up with an idea in a group, there's
usually an exchange. It wasn't one person who invented the idea from scratch,
but a group effort. So again, it's seen as the group that made the decision.
Third, you're a product of your culture, right? Your outlook on life is at first very
much dominated by the views of the people around you. If you're raised in a
Christian home, you will very likely believe in Christianity.

Of course, the individualists sees this all in a different light. It's true you
learned from others, but your mind had to grasp it. It's true that the invention
took more than one person interacting to form, but each step along the way
was made by individuals. It's true that you grow up within a culture, but you're
free to accept or reject it. Being a part of these groups doesn't make you act
the way you do. That's up to you.

Another reason for collectivism is the idea of mob mentality. When people are
in a group, they sometimes stop thinking and just go with the wishes of their
peers. Objectivists refer to this as second-handedness in a more general
sense. But when someone is unwilling to think for themselves, and accept the
wishes of the people around them, it looks and smells a lot like a collective.
The only flaw is that the individuals are choosing to go with their peers, and
they can also choose not to.

So do people actually view others in terms of collectivism? We need some


examples.

An enormously significant example is that of racism. Racism is the view that


there is a race of people, usually determined by skin color and appearance,
and that they're all basically the same. Racism is fundamentally collectivist.
Instead of viewing individuals by their own actions, values, or attributes, the
group is judged and the outcome is arbitrarily assigned to the individuals. In
other words, you get praised or blamed not by your own actions, but by the
actions of someone else (or more than one person). This is a huge injustice,
and turns the whole concept of moral judgment upside down.

There are other forms of collectivism. Any time where the group is considered
to have a life of it's own outside of the individuals. An easy example is a
nation. People often attribute qualities, values, etc., to an entire nation. And
the nation often claims to have values that are different from the individuals.

Another example which I like to use but upsets some people is marriage.
Marriage is often treated as a collective. This is why you hear things like
"making the marriage work", as if it had a life of its own and the husband and
wife are just there to satisfy it. What this example illustrates is that the
collective need not be big. It's really a perspective issue. If you see the
husband and wife interacting, then you can say things like "if you want to get
along better, you should do this". But when the marriage becomes a value in
itself, and the husband and wife are told to sacrifice in order to make it work,
then they are acting as collectivists.

Ethically speaking, there are a number of problems with collectivism. For


instance, because the collective is seen as having an importance higher than
the individuals that make it up, those same individuals are asked to sacrifice
for it. It is created into an intrinsic value, and destroys one's ability to rationally
pursue one's own self-interest.

It also interferes with justice. Justice is concerned with making moral


judgments about other people and acting accordingly. But collectivism
destroys proper moral judgment by attributing value choices to the whole
group, instead of the person making the choice.

Individualism is the proper approach to this problem. Moral judgments are


made by moral agents. The person making the decision gets credit or blame
for it. Values are agent-relative, and the person makes his choices by seeing
how the value impacts his life. It is the individual that ethics is concerned with,
and collectivism just obscures this point.
Individualism
Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which
individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which
the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself
and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people
from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended
families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in
exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

For example, Germany can be considered as individualistic with a relatively high score
(67) on the scale of Hofstede compared to a country like Guatemala where they have
strong collectivism (6 on the scale).

In Germany people stress on personal achievements and individual rights. Germans


expect from each other to fulfil their own needs. Group work is important, but everybody
has the right of his own opinion an is expected to reflect those. In an individual country
like Germany people tend to have more loose relationships than countries where there
is a collectivism where people have large extended families.

The United States can clearly been seen as individualistic (scoring a 91). The
“American dream” is clearly a representation of this. This is the Americans’ hope for a
better quality of life and a higher standard of living than their parents’. This belief is that
anyone, regardless of their status can ‘pull up their boot straps’ and raise themselves
from poverty.

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