Please reference this piece before you read the article below - https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/is-individualism-a-good-thing/p05t8hct
Weren’t the Collectivist ideals of Communist China fantastic? All that it costs to found heaven on Earth, a beacon of human rights, environmental sanctuary and free speech are a few million people (sic), and what are they to the great spirit of community?
According to Julian Baggini in his BBC Big Idea skit regarding individualism, yes, it is fantastic. That seems to be the insinuation, as the Chinese flag is proudly flown alongside a declaration that East Asian social prosperity is based upon the ancient faith of the greater good. You know, the one that’s torn the Korean peninsula apart and sent Japan headfirst into some of the worst human atrocities ever seen, during WWII. This is all somehow superior to the degradation caused by the spiteful Western idea that we’re all different and worthy of our own individual definitions.
Remarkable that something on the BBC in the 21st century could sound so much like pamphlet propaganda from stateside ‘Reds’ during the paranoia of the Cold War.
Don’t forget how individualism can be linked to the “degradation of Western civilisation”. Yes, that horrendous notion that we’re all entitled to one vote per person, and that we should in theory all possess unassailable liberties that protect us from both other people and state incursion into our lives. Good gosh, with dangerous ideas like that we could create all sorts of terrible situations; blacks might get the vote or, God forbid, women! Imagine a world where women and men live as equals, and race is not a defining factor to opportunity or employment, I can’t think in what backward section of the world such ideas would ever take hold, or what mad theories they see as somehow ‘enlightened’ could sow the seeds of such discourse.
I have never quite before been so close to the traditional caricature of the outraged Englishman spitting his tea out at something relatively small and trivial, and yet somehow utterly offensive to my sensibilities.
What worries me is not that this bizarre attack on individualism exists on the BBC today. It is free speech after all. He affirms the hard-line idea that individualism is selfish, heartless and apparently devoid of achievement in comparison to Collectivist spirit. That idea responsible for atrocity upon atrocity and economic disaster upon economic disaster (see Venezuela, Cuba, China, USSR et al). Indeed, what actually worries me is that there is no contrasting view or comment.
“Individualism is a double-edged sword” claims Comr- Mr Baggini. Perhaps it is, but Collectivism has one point, and it is one that has created deep wounds from which we do not seem to have learned our lessons.
Felix Mayfield
Libertarian Party, Worcestershire