Sunday, November 04, 2007

Collectivism and Individualism:the bridge over the chasm

Start with a straightforward point: driving a car is not a bad thing in itself,
but problems arise when everyone drives a car.
So a relatively good thing becomes a very bad thing:
pollution, reliance on fossil fuels, accidents.

But does this mean that we should just ban people from driving?
We could, but we might as well just ban all modern technologies,
e.g. mobile phones are useful but they dominate modern people's lives.

Now take petty offences:stealing, vandalism, graffiti, supply of banned substances.
With a minority in society taking part in these activities,these are obviously antisocial.

However, it could be argued that if everyone stole, for example, these issues
would work themselves out, i.e. one could promise not to steal in return for
an individual, group or corporate body providing one some kind of service.

I suppose this is a criticism of Individualist Anarchism or Agorism
(its a word I just learnt it) in terms of "the only way your gonna achieve
anti-organisation is if everyone disorganises and effectively organises
at the same time by spontaneously participating in one or other agoristic
activity", because to achieve Individualism society as a whole has
to engage in history's largest
Collective act.

An example of things "working themselves out" is prostitution:
it is quite feasible for all adult women to prostitute themselves,
it happens all the time. Its called marriage!

Where Collectivism doesn't work are the big three, really heinous
crimes of murder, rape and torture. If everyone did these things,
socety would simply decide who can do these things, when and
to whom.

Individualism by itself doesn't work because it can
only be realised by sacrificing some freedoms or
through employing the most collective methods
available.

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