I think the gulf between individualism and collectivism is more similar to what has become of left versus right, which is to say it's completely insufficient by

I think the gulf between individualism and collectivism is more similar to what has become of left versus right, which is to say it's completely insufficient by itself. With left versus right it's now also critical to consider libertarian versus authoritarian. So too with individualism and collectivism, I think you need to also factor in nationalism versus globalism. The US was certainly driven by nationalism, but the individualism vs collectivism component is not clearly individualistic either. For instance in our founding, states were viewed as entities in and of themselves. Institutions like the senate and the electoral college are very clear reminders that the state was seen as more relevant than the individual. In either case today we've gone more individualistic and globalistic. This diminishes the strength of the state. And I think many see that as a positive today without considering that things we consider rights and privileges we take for granted are not inalienable, but a product of our nation which creates that inalienability. The reason you can burn a flag as a protest without being rounded up and summarily 'removed from society' one way or the other, as would happen in many parts of this world, is because of what that very flag represents. If we created a nation that was an aggregate of this world, it'd still be quite an awful place. This is in part why, though I'd hardly consider myself nationalistic, I think that keep our nations strong and independent is so crucial. I also find it trite that the push for extremes of globalism is largely coming from corporations and other power non-state entities. Guess who rules a society where the nation or state is secondary? Many would like to think it's the individual, but it's not. Globalism is analogous to union busting on the international scale. Many people were led to believe that unions were not in their best interest. That worked out well...