What is individualism and why do we need to fight it?
Individualism is a concept derived from the Christian belief of the 'soul'. The concept of the soul divided humans into separate units that are separately judged by God for their actions and deeds as opposed to being judged by any collective structure like a family, tribe, nationality etc. It atomises people and makes them think only of themselves as being responsible for their actions and severs the link that they previously innately had with their communities.
This concept was too mystic, so during the enlightenment the soul got all of its mythological elements removed, this was the birth of an 'individual'. In essence though, the individual is the same as the Christian concept of 'soul'. It relies on free will, people choosing whatever they want to do with no obligations to anyone but themselves.
Human rights also came from this same concept because human rights are there to protect the individuals. Even if these individuals as a class harm the collective, the judicial system is designed to protect the individual despite collective justice. A small minority oppresses the majority, top 40 richest people have more wealth than half of the planet and legally nothing can be done lest it be decried as mob rule.
When one considers themselves an individual, they loudly proclaim that they are an atomised unit, not beholden to any collective concerns. They are the masters of their destiny, they can do whatever, take whatever, it's *their* life!
We need to oppose that because as leftists it is our duty to abolish this concept and focus on the collective. The collective in typical Marxist literature is the ‘class’, the proletariat, the interests of the whole are taken to be above the interests of the individual. In fact it is well understood that only united can the proletariat really win.
The collective, unlike the individual, changes the perception of people in that they don't see themselves as single units, but rather as a continuous stream within a collective, their interests and those of others are mutual. Feelings, mental states, desires as well as duties and responsibilities are shared within the collective.
This rightly oppresses the ‘individual’; the more power you give to the collective, the more you have to repress individual rights, but that’s not as bad as it sounds! We want to challenge the concept of the 'self' as atomised units and instead we want to make people act as a whole.
This isn’t a day dream by the way, this concept was put to practice under Mao, the collective power manifested itself against the individual capitalist roaders, Dazibaos (character posters) were put up by the people to shame members who cared about their own self interests over the collective.
The people felt empowered, the people felt like they belong and that their best well being is inseparable from the collective well being.
During the Great Leap Forward in Maoist China, (*) a representative of the communist party Wu Changxing refused to eat more than the villagers as he worked with them on the irrigation sites day and night. He later died from a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition, this collective ideology was so powerful that it transcended death itself.
This may sound extreme, and maybe a bit alienating to an American or European mind, but that’s because we live and grew up in a liberal system where the individual and its interests are to come first so the idea of a person dying for the collective and its wellbeing may sound extreme.
However, what about families? In the western world, the family structure is a collective one, and if I was to tell you that a poor father worked himself to death to feed his family, sacrificed his life for the good of the whole, that doesn’t seem so strange. Does it?
It makes sense within our culture why this is excusable, hell, we look down upon those who don’t do anything for their families and we don’t apply the same individual logic to them. A father loves his family, they are a part of him and he is willing to sacrifice his own health and immediate well-being for them, Why?
Shouldn’t he just care for himself, consume what he wants, take whatever he wants? Why do we preach individualism but then think that a father who goes on heroin binges, leaves his family in poverty, is bad, why?
You may say because when he started a family that he then entered a sort of imaginary social contract whereby he is obligated to serve them, but then, can we not say that the communist official also entered a social contract with the peasants and workers, the people who he was sworn to help and serve?
What if the official loves his own collective the same way that a father loves his family, they are a part of him and he wants to do whatever he can to improve their conditions even if it will sacrifice his health and life, is that really so different?
Yet if we think about it, when applied to the western world, this sounds cultish, a politician elected by his constituents sacrificing himself for the good of the whole? Sounds so odd, doesn’t it?
We know that family structures care for each other and there’s a collective expectation for them but at the same time we deny that connection among non-family, why? Why should we feel estranged from others, why should we learn that outside of the family we need to compete, to step on the enemy while inside we are to do the opposite? Sounds like a contradiction.
Is it then really so strange to visualise that Eastern cultures don’t just stop the collective mindset with the family (**), but extend it to the whole society, that it’s us in western nations living in a contradiction.
Shouldn’t it also be then, our job as leftists to create that bond between people beyond family. To find what connects us to each other other than family ties? After all, our political strategy is precisely collectivist, power for the masses, one for all, all for one!
That it is through unity of the oppressed that we can end oppression by the minority! Yet our western political concepts reflect the need for an individual more than for the collective, we really need to change that!
So, let’s strike fear in those who want to harm us as a whole! Give way to collective over individual rights! Power to the masses, end the individual!
Bradley Gabriel -
Sources:
Farmers-Mao-and-discontent-in-china*
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