Individuality doesn't mix with totalitarianism but is totally fine with collectivism. Individualism doesn't mix with collectivism but is totally fine with totalitarianism.
image by Democracy Chronicles - source: flickr
I should stop there and call it a day. After the title and the intro you either totally get it or you are completely confused. In either case there's not much sense in trying to explain what I mean or explain why the meaning is so relevant to our times; and this is a good thing because I really need to get some sleep... so please forgive me if some of the sentences come out half-baked, as I try to formulate my thoughts anyway ;-)
We live in the age of individualism. And so many of us mistake that for an age of celebrating individuality. But individuality and individualism are not the same. We also live in an age in which all sorts of collectivism is looked down upon, because collectivism unjust-fully is equated to totalitarianism. This is but one of the many signs that "doublespeak" isn't just the intellectual property of George Orwell anymore...
The Fountainhead - Howard Roark speech
"It is an ancient conflict, it has another name: the individual against the collective. Our country, the greatest country in the history of men was based on the principle of individualism. The principle of man's inalienable rights. It was a country where man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce, not to give up and renounce. To prosper, not to starve. To achieve, not to plunder. To hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value and as his highest virtue his self-respect."
This little gem of an anarcho-capitalists wet dream, by the queen of individualism, Ayn Rand herself, is such a resounding example of all the misconceptions around these terms. Individuality is simply the recognition that every person is unique, so there is no conflict between the individual and the collective; they necessarily coexist, and if there are individual needs that need to be weighed against collective needs (what we used to honor with the term "the greater good"), then we have a process called "democracy". Imagine that... no conflict, just a process... so easy...
Individualism on the other hand is an ideology, it's an "ism" that like all other "isms" places one trait or idea in the center of all things and lets that be the final judge in all of life's questions. You know, like capitalism ;-) Individualism is the ideology that places the individual at the center of all things, makes the individual the final judge of all moral behavior. Individualism places the interests of the individual front and center, and any interference from the government or society is seen as injustice.
In the individualist capitalist society all individuals are regarded as rational thinking agents that always act in their own interest. In capitalism "greed" really does work; I am astounded how little I hear people debate what negative effect this has on our decomposing corpse of a society. Not at the top, not the bankers, they get discussed about enough, I mean what it does to us "common folk". I often wonder: "when did we stop being a society, where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, and start being a mere collection of individuals, always looking for the next thrill, never sure where to look next, forming a whole that is but a pale reflection of its former self?" Because, if rationality gets equated to self-interest like that, it follows that acting altruistically, or not in your self-interest, is irrational. Acting in someone else's interest makes you a loser, a dumdum, unless you gain back more than you invest, and then it's not really altruistic, is it?
Individualism and totalitarianism are seen as opposites, and I wonder why: it is the very mechanics of an individualist and profit driven economy that produces the concentration of power that enables totalitarianism; the one we live in now, but prefer to call a "plutocracy." Or do you still believe your democracy works for you? Of course, collectivism is also an ideology and it's equally unhealthy to put only the collective's needs front and center, although that would make a lot more sense and make a better, more peaceful society than we have now; of that I'm convinced. The objection often leveled against collectivism is that all collectivist human experiments were brutal totalitarian regimes, totally disregarding the fact that those examples were not truly collectivist because of their totalitarian nature.
Individuality is just the reality of our existence; we all have a different perspective on whatever reality is out there. That's why no one person can claim to give an objective account of that reality, without losing sight of the fact that there is a universe out there that will persist even if our perspectives on it are gone. We can only collectively claim to construct a damn good approximation of our shared reality, sharing is the closest we can come to objectivity. For centuries, through all ages and all cultures, we as a species have known the truth of The Golden Rule, which is a nice way of saying that we don't only think about ourselves, but also about the group we belong to. We are tribal beings, not individualists nor collectivists.
We are individuals that live in an ever growing group, because we are fast becoming a global village. And there's nothing wrong to acknowledge the existence of the collective we all are integral parts of. There's nothing to be gained and so much to be lost by acting as if each of us individually is the center of the universe. To think that makes you personally responsible for your lot in life. If you're poor, than that's because you didn't make the right choices, and you didn't work hard enough, so it's all on you! Why do pharma-giants make tons of money with selling anti-depressants? Why are suicide-numbers ever increasing? Why do so many young people don't believe they owe society anything or just don't care what they want to become, as long as it makes them good money?
Fact is that nobody is really independent, and everybody is a unique individual, whatever capitalism, communism, individualism, collectivism or any other ideology may have to say about it. In a material worldview "democracy" is, however clumsy at times, the best solution we have to deal with that reality. Democracy stops, however, when you enter the place of production; then the economic hierarchy takes over and money- and power-concentration goes rampant. Let's introduce more democracy, specifically democratic ownership of the means of production. That is, essentially, what we need to do if we don't want to revert back to more local forms of organization or production. Or we leave things as they are and keep going down the race to the bottom.
Listen to one of Ayn Rand's pupils; Alan Greenspan, the longest serving chairman of the FED, and hear what he has to say about his mistakes and misconceptions about greed and how he describes how his ideology effectively creates the totalitarian plutocracy that is today's reality:
Ayn Rand-admirer Alan Greenspan admits he was wrong about deregulation
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