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This argument feels like an oversimplification to me. These are only two examples of "collectivist" societies. The idea that you are either strongly individual

This argument feels like an oversimplification to me. These are only two examples of "collectivist" societies. The idea that you are either strongly individualist or China/Russia seems like a false dichotomy. Some of the happiest societies in the world employee a model that is neither rigidly collectivist or individualist (e.g. the Nordic model). My intuition is that the solution like probably in the middle ground at a political level, while adapting to our new digital reality. The argument that our society must embrace full individualism or fail, feels a bit like the red-scare lite.

woooooo 4y ago
It's deeply American to call Russia "collectivist". It's more similar to 1800s America, economically, than it is to the USSR. Oligarchs owning resource extraction for sale into capital markets. Generally when people say "collectivist", they mean "bad guys in black hats and also I liked Ayn Rand"
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Russia is collectivist not because of their economic system but because of their nationalism. National rejuvenation is prioritized above the prosperity and freedom of the individual.
  - badpun 4y ago
    That's just a narrative the ruling thugs use to explain to people while their lives continue to be shitty while the rest of the world keeps improving. Most people in Russia are brainwashed into believing that, even though they're not well off by any means on a personal level, Russia is a global superpower that can rival the US. BTW I wonder if the current absolute embarrasment of Russian Army in Ukraine will be able to speak some sense into Russian people - but, judging by what I see in the Internet, the official propaganda has already convinced Russians that their army is fighting against entire NATO forces and not just Ukrainian army (because obviously, just the Ukrainian army would be defeated in under a month).
- izacus 4y ago
  Yeah, if anything, Russia is a hyper-individualist ultra-capitalist endstate of society - every man for himself, taking care only for himself and everything you need has to be paid for. Even soldiers have to buy their own equipment with predatory loans from people that stole it from the army. Calling Russia (heck or even China) "collectivist" is just repeating propaganda from expired times and show a horrifyingly poor education.
seydor 4y ago
the nordics are probably the most individualists in europe. Look to the south for more collectivist cultures. The strong nordic state welfare actually enables people to be individualists. there s no argument about what society must do, but the evidence shows that people gravitate that way
- badpun 4y ago
  They are collectivist in the sense that they pay very high taxes without trying to weasel themselves out of them. But yeah, they pay them so that they can actually live an individualistic life :)
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    > they pay very high taxes without trying to weasel themselves out of them You haven't met rich Nordic people, IMHO.
hackerlight 4y ago
> Some of the happiest societies in the world employee a model that is neither rigidly collectivist or individualist (e.g. the Nordic model). Nordic societies are the most individualist societies on earth. Their policies are all about individual people and their wellbeing. They have no collectivist concept of a greater good that is above the individual. In Russia and China the concept of national rejuvenation is paramount above the individual. These nationalist visions are maximally collectivist. Trump is a lite version of this. The sociocultural construct of "America" and the sociolegal construct of "freedom" is supreme over the actual positive freedoms and negative freedoms of the individual. Self-described right-libertarians are often very collectivist in actual practice. You can't be anti-immigration and call yourself an individualist, it's a nationalist (and therefore collectivist) position.
- badpun 4y ago
  > You can't be anti-immigration and call yourself an individualist, it's a nationalist (and therefore collectivist) position. I don't neccessarily disagree with the rest of your post, but the above seems obviously false. Most anti-immigratio people are not for it because of some abstract ideas, but because they see immigrant as direct competitiors for their jobs. That was one of the biggest reasons behing Brexit votes for example.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    I believe the motive is more ethnonationalist than is admitted to in polite circles. "Culture" or "jobs" is the euphemistic front, but the true reasons are fear of crime/terrorism, and fear of becoming a racial minority and the consequences that will have on their voting power and racial supremacy. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of crime is collective guilt and collective punishment. Only a small minority of individuals will be criminals, but the entire collective is punished all the same. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of racial diversity or fear of cultural change, is also a collectivist motive, it's a more nationalistic and nativist iteration of collectivism than fear of crime. If the earnest reason is jobs protectionism, I'd still argue that protectionism isn't individualist. It's not explicitly collectivist, but it's a suppression of individual rights for cynical reasons. At least, it's anti-individualist, if not collectivist.

woooooo 4y ago

It's deeply American to call Russia "collectivist". It's more similar to 1800s America, economically, than it is to the USSR. Oligarchs owning resource extraction for sale into capital markets. Generally when people say "collectivist", they mean "bad guys in black hats and also I liked Ayn Rand"

hackerlight 4y ago
Russia is collectivist not because of their economic system but because of their nationalism. National rejuvenation is prioritized above the prosperity and freedom of the individual.
- badpun 4y ago
  That's just a narrative the ruling thugs use to explain to people while their lives continue to be shitty while the rest of the world keeps improving. Most people in Russia are brainwashed into believing that, even though they're not well off by any means on a personal level, Russia is a global superpower that can rival the US. BTW I wonder if the current absolute embarrasment of Russian Army in Ukraine will be able to speak some sense into Russian people - but, judging by what I see in the Internet, the official propaganda has already convinced Russians that their army is fighting against entire NATO forces and not just Ukrainian army (because obviously, just the Ukrainian army would be defeated in under a month).
izacus 4y ago
Yeah, if anything, Russia is a hyper-individualist ultra-capitalist endstate of society - every man for himself, taking care only for himself and everything you need has to be paid for. Even soldiers have to buy their own equipment with predatory loans from people that stole it from the army. Calling Russia (heck or even China) "collectivist" is just repeating propaganda from expired times and show a horrifyingly poor education.

seydor 4y ago

the nordics are probably the most individualists in europe. Look to the south for more collectivist cultures. The strong nordic state welfare actually enables people to be individualists. there s no argument about what society must do, but the evidence shows that people gravitate that way

badpun 4y ago
They are collectivist in the sense that they pay very high taxes without trying to weasel themselves out of them. But yeah, they pay them so that they can actually live an individualistic life :)
- lostmsu 4y ago
  > they pay very high taxes without trying to weasel themselves out of them You haven't met rich Nordic people, IMHO.

hackerlight 4y ago

> Some of the happiest societies in the world employee a model that is neither rigidly collectivist or individualist (e.g. the Nordic model). Nordic societies are the most individualist societies on earth. Their policies are all about individual people and their wellbeing. They have no collectivist concept of a greater good that is above the individual. In Russia and China the concept of national rejuvenation is paramount above the individual. These nationalist visions are maximally collectivist. Trump is a lite version of this. The sociocultural construct of "America" and the sociolegal construct of "freedom" is supreme over the actual positive freedoms and negative freedoms of the individual. Self-described right-libertarians are often very collectivist in actual practice. You can't be anti-immigration and call yourself an individualist, it's a nationalist (and therefore collectivist) position.

badpun 4y ago
> You can't be anti-immigration and call yourself an individualist, it's a nationalist (and therefore collectivist) position. I don't neccessarily disagree with the rest of your post, but the above seems obviously false. Most anti-immigratio people are not for it because of some abstract ideas, but because they see immigrant as direct competitiors for their jobs. That was one of the biggest reasons behing Brexit votes for example.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  I believe the motive is more ethnonationalist than is admitted to in polite circles. "Culture" or "jobs" is the euphemistic front, but the true reasons are fear of crime/terrorism, and fear of becoming a racial minority and the consequences that will have on their voting power and racial supremacy. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of crime is collective guilt and collective punishment. Only a small minority of individuals will be criminals, but the entire collective is punished all the same. Anti-immigration that comes from fear of racial diversity or fear of cultural change, is also a collectivist motive, it's a more nationalistic and nativist iteration of collectivism than fear of crime. If the earnest reason is jobs protectionism, I'd still argue that protectionism isn't individualist. It's not explicitly collectivist, but it's a suppression of individual rights for cynical reasons. At least, it's anti-individualist, if not collectivist.