The problem is better stated as selfishness, not individualism. Being unique and individual is OK; thinking you're so fucking special that other people can eat shit so long as you get yours is not.
Saying the problem is selfishnes still presupposes individualism: the problem is that there are individuals who act selfishly and they should stop doing so. It centers the solution around the actions of individuals.
But as socialists, we know this is not the real answer. It is material conditions that force people into competition against one another and isolates us from each other. Socialism will by definition have to be far less individualistic, but you'll still have selfish people.
He's saying that. The point being made is collectivism is a requirement of building community and community is a requirement of the kind of culture that would lead to revolution. In order to have collectivism you must have less individualism. The two are polar opposites of cultural communal behaviour in contradiction to one another under capitalism. Individualism under capitalism creates selfish competition.
In order to have collectivism you must have less individualism.
I don't think that's correct. What is needed for collective action is less selfishness, which is not the same as individualism. I can be a distinct, individual person with my own tastes, opinions, and desires and still participate in collective activities. That's just plain-old individualism, and that's fine. There are countless examples of all different sorts of collective endeavors that have different individuals coming together for the common good.
Where you run into problems is when that individualism turns into an unwillingness to do anything that doesn't perfectly align with one's personal goals, or a willingness to take one's ball and go home rather than accept less than 100% of what one wants. That's selfishness, and that's poison to collective efforts. Individualism can lead to selfishness in some circumstances, but it doesn't necessarily lead to selfishness. I know tons of people who are distinct individuals but who are the least selfish people you'll meet.
You are creating a new definition of individualism that focuses solely on personal identity and nothing else. That is not what the cultural battle over individualist and collectivist cultures is really about.
Individualism is not "having a personal identity". Individualist cultural is about working for oneself and pursuing competition against other individuals in society in order to drive a competitive atmosphere that results in the strongest/best rising out on top. Collectivist culture on the other hand is about building community links where everyone works together to raise everyone simultaneously.
Making "individualism" into an entirely new american definition meaning "having a personal identity" is a bastardisation of what it has always meant and been used to refer to within the context of socialist vs capitalist struggle over the last couple centuries. It is a distortion of the meaning.
Individualism under capitalism results in competition and atomisation of the working class, it actively creates that selfishness. That is why the bourgeoisie push it so hard.
In order to unite the working class you MUST lower individualism and build collectivism.
You are creating a new definition of individualism that focuses solely on personal identity and nothing else.
It's not a new definition: "the actions or attitudes of a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think."
What I'm describing is very much part of the common definition of "individualism," even though there's also the more politicized definition you're referring to. This is why reactionaries insist on painting leftists as anti-individualism -- it doesn't sound absurd because they created the political definition, but it implies that leftists hate individualism in the "personal identity" sense, too. This is why Cold War propaganda characterized the commies as straight-backed, assembly line automatons while the Free World got cool, individual consumer stuff like blue jeans and rock and roll.
That is not what the cultural battle over individualist and collectivist cultures is really about.
Well yeah, the whole point here is that it's better to frame this cultural battle as selfishness vs. collectivism instead of individualism vs. collectivism. We shouldn't be playing on a field created by chuds in the first place, and "selfishness" really is a more precise descriptor of what we're criticizing. No one on the left is opposed to individualism in as much as individualism means just being your own person. There's no reason we should accept anything that sounds like that as a starting premise. Even individual excellence isn't really something any left philosophy has a big problem with; the problem only arises when a person wants to keep far more than they could ever need for themselves, personally, at the expense of many others (i.e., selfishness).
In order to unite the working class you MUST lower individualism and build collectivism.
I mean, good luck selling this on Americans. It seems much easier to point out that individualism is fine so long as it doesn't become selfishness. People already like individualism and dislike selfishness. Why not use that instead of fighting it? Do you honestly think the left is going to have success trotting out "you need to give up your individualism" to Americans?
Ok. It's not a new definition. It's the lib definition. We're marxists though. We use the marxist definition.
I mean, good luck selling this on Americans. It seems much easier to point out that individualism is fine so long as it doesn’t become selfishness. People already like individualism and dislike selfishness. Why not use that instead of fighting it? Do you honestly think the left is going to have success trotting out “you need to give up your individualism” to Americans?
This is called opportunism. You want to compromise on what ACTUALLY needs to be done because it is long and difficult, sending the movement down the wrong path and setting it back.
What needs to be done can not be changed. Yes it is long and difficult. But it is what needs to be done. Failure to commit to the longterm effort and falling into opportunist mindset is how movements end up going off-track.
Yes. You must sell that to Americans. An outcome that must occur through mass class consciousness building and the spreading of theory. The people will come around to it when they understand what socialism is, what its goals are and what its fundamentals truly are instead of the distortions they have in mind currently. They will do this because they will realise that it is right, correct, and in their best interests. The problem is not a matter of convincing people emotionally, it's not an emotional-based topic, we are simply RIGHT, it is an educational problem, the people must be educated. That will occur over time as more and more and more people learn resulting in more that are out there also teaching.
Yes it is long and hard. Deal with it. Opportunism is not the way.
It’s the lib definition. We’re marxists though. We use the marxist definition.
This is just "everything I don't like is liberal." There is no Marxist definition of "individualism," and certainly not one that applies to 21st-century culture wars slap fights.
You are wrong here. Do a little bit of self-crit and accept that a literal dictionary definition is generally going to reflect how people commonly use the term. That's the whole reason right wingers frame the debate as "individualism vs. collectivism" -- because it makes it sound like leftists want to take away your personal identity, which sounds shitty because it would be shitty. There's no reason we should be playing into that.
You want to compromise on what ACTUALLY needs to be done
Show me anywhere in any sort of leftist writing that says "you have to give up your personal identity to achieve socialism." I must have missed that in Lenin.
it is an educational problem, the people must be educated
Plenty of education and plenty of collective work gets done without asking people to abandon their personal identity. The problem is people who are selfish, not people who are their own person.
There certainly is a marxist definition. Just as there is a marxist definition of reactionary that differs heavily from the liberal one, as is the case with many words and phrases adapted into the communist lexicon but with altered intentions. In much the same way we use class to refer to social classes and their relationship to the productive forces and yet liberals refer to class as an ethereal and meaningless thing with no strict definition largely defined by some sort of ill defined amount of wealth.
To act like there aren't countless very different definitions for words between marxist usage and liberal usage highlights not actually engaging in the reading very much.
To be more precise, the Marxist definition of individualism is drawn from Max Stirner, which is laid out well in Chapter 3 of "German Ideology" by Marx and Engels:
“... the abolition of a state of affairs in which relations become independent of individuals, in which individuality is subservient to chance and the personal relations of individuals are subordinated to general class relations, etc. - that the abolition of this state of affairs is determined in the final analysis by the abolition of division of labour. We have also shown that the abolition of division of labour is determined by the development of intercourse and productive forces to such a degree of universality that private property and division of labour become fetters on them. We have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces, and because the contradiction between the classes has reached its extreme limit. Finally, we have shown that the abolition of private property and of the division of labour is itself the association of individuals on the basis created by modern productive forces and world intercourse.
“Within communist society, the only society in which the genuine and free development of individuals ceases to be a mere phrase, this development is determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the free development of all, and, finally, in the universal character of the activity of individuals on the basis of the existing productive forces. We are, therefore, here concerned with individuals at a definite historical stage of development and by no means merely with individuals chosen at random, even disregarding the indispensable communist revolution, which itself is a general condition for their free development. The individuals’ consciousness of their mutual relations will, of course, likewise be completely changed, and, therefore, will no more be the “principle of love” or dévoûment than it will be egoism.” [Saint Max, German Ideology, Chapter 3]
The general point is that, under capitalism, you can not separate the individual and their relationship to production. Individualism under capitalism is brutal competition with everyone else within the class. It always will be. There is no separation of selfishness from individualism under capitalism. The ONLY way you can combat this is by the reduction of individualism and the collectivisation of society.
In a post-capitalist world you can then look towards moving away from complete collectivisation.
But yes, the marxist definition is strict and absolutely different to the generalised liberal one. The marxist individualism is strictly Max Stirner's individualism and nobody else's, as it was Stirner's individualism that Marx was countering in his works of the period.
With that said, Marx wanted the individual to remain. We're not supposed to become a borg. But the individualism of capitalist society must be countered in order for community and socialism to rise.
Individualism under capitalism is brutal competition with everyone else within the class. It always will be. There is no separation of selfishness from individualism under capitalism.
I'm not getting this at all from that excerpt, and I don't think it's accurate. I don't see how that excerpt is using "individuals" as any sort of term of art -- with a specific, non-standard definition -- either.
Yes, capitalism forces people into brutal competition. And sure, while engaging in that competition people act selfishly. But that doesn't mean that in modern America individualism and selfishness are synonyms. If you took a poll asking people if they think each word is positive, individualism would score quite a bit higher than selfishness. If you tell someone "you're very individualistic" vs. "you're very selfish" you're going to get a very different reaction. I see no reason to insist on a ~170-year-old definition of individualism (that isn't even clear, if it's a distinct definition at all) when we already have a word that describes the problems capitalism creates on a personal level (selfishness), and when the entire country uses a different, more modern definition of individualism.
The labels don't really matter, after all -- it's the concepts that are important. If someone wants to copy/paste Medicare for All into something called "FreedomCare," I'm not going to fight them on terminology if they have something that'll pass.
But the individualism of capitalist society must be countered in order for community and socialism to rise.
You've mentioned community a few times. Every single community I've ever encountered or even read about has involved individualism, in the sense that it means personal identity. What distinguishes real communities from groups of people who live near one another is how selfish the occupants are, or how willing they are to help one another out.
This is revisionism to justify opportunism because you want to avoid the longer and more difficult task of cutting through the distortions present in a population that has been propagandised against collectivism and in favour of individualism for a century. I understand why you would desperately want to avoid addressing that problem, it's a daunting prospect and the level of obsession with individualism present in the American psyche is terrifying.
The problem however is that if you do not cut through that propagandised population and create collectivisation the result of your revisionist revolution is far more likely to result in fascism, not socialism, and thus it would be better to have not engaged in revolution at all. Attempting to take shortcuts to reach the goal sooner is exceptionally dangerous, especially in the American landscape.
you want to avoid the longer and more difficult task
We don't have time for a longer solution. We're in a climate crisis, a pandemic, and an enormous economic collapse right now. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good.
the result of your revisionist revolution is far more likely to result in fascism, not socialism
I don't see how "selfishness is bad, but go ahead, have your own individual identity while we help each other out" will lead to fascism.
Attempting to take shortcuts to reach the goal
Shortcuts? We don't know what the road to socialism will look like -- existing or past socialist countries got there in different ways, and trying to directly copy/paste the experiences of poor developing nations onto the imperial core is just begging for failure. History and Marxist theory are a useful map, but a map doesn't prepare you for all the potential issues along the way. It gives you some things to watch out for and some good advice, but ultimately you have to get from Point A to Point B on your own. And again, there's nothing in Marxist literature that says even non-selfish personal identities are incompatible with socialism. There's not even a theoretical map telling us not to do that even if you believe such a map can take you step by step to socialism.
The problem is better stated as selfishness, not individualism. Being unique and individual is OK; thinking you're so fucking special that other people can eat shit so long as you get yours is not.
Saying the problem is selfishnes still presupposes individualism: the problem is that there are individuals who act selfishly and they should stop doing so. It centers the solution around the actions of individuals.
But as socialists, we know this is not the real answer. It is material conditions that force people into competition against one another and isolates us from each other. Socialism will by definition have to be far less individualistic, but you'll still have selfish people.
He's saying that. The point being made is collectivism is a requirement of building community and community is a requirement of the kind of culture that would lead to revolution. In order to have collectivism you must have less individualism. The two are polar opposites of cultural communal behaviour in contradiction to one another under capitalism. Individualism under capitalism creates selfish competition.
I don't think that's correct. What is needed for collective action is less selfishness, which is not the same as individualism. I can be a distinct, individual person with my own tastes, opinions, and desires and still participate in collective activities. That's just plain-old individualism, and that's fine. There are countless examples of all different sorts of collective endeavors that have different individuals coming together for the common good.
Where you run into problems is when that individualism turns into an unwillingness to do anything that doesn't perfectly align with one's personal goals, or a willingness to take one's ball and go home rather than accept less than 100% of what one wants. That's selfishness, and that's poison to collective efforts. Individualism can lead to selfishness in some circumstances, but it doesn't necessarily lead to selfishness. I know tons of people who are distinct individuals but who are the least selfish people you'll meet.
You are creating a new definition of individualism that focuses solely on personal identity and nothing else. That is not what the cultural battle over individualist and collectivist cultures is really about.
Individualism is not "having a personal identity". Individualist cultural is about working for oneself and pursuing competition against other individuals in society in order to drive a competitive atmosphere that results in the strongest/best rising out on top. Collectivist culture on the other hand is about building community links where everyone works together to raise everyone simultaneously.
Making "individualism" into an entirely new american definition meaning "having a personal identity" is a bastardisation of what it has always meant and been used to refer to within the context of socialist vs capitalist struggle over the last couple centuries. It is a distortion of the meaning.
Individualism under capitalism results in competition and atomisation of the working class, it actively creates that selfishness. That is why the bourgeoisie push it so hard.
In order to unite the working class you MUST lower individualism and build collectivism.
It's not a new definition: "the actions or attitudes of a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think."
What I'm describing is very much part of the common definition of "individualism," even though there's also the more politicized definition you're referring to. This is why reactionaries insist on painting leftists as anti-individualism -- it doesn't sound absurd because they created the political definition, but it implies that leftists hate individualism in the "personal identity" sense, too. This is why Cold War propaganda characterized the commies as straight-backed, assembly line automatons while the Free World got cool, individual consumer stuff like blue jeans and rock and roll.
Well yeah, the whole point here is that it's better to frame this cultural battle as selfishness vs. collectivism instead of individualism vs. collectivism. We shouldn't be playing on a field created by chuds in the first place, and "selfishness" really is a more precise descriptor of what we're criticizing. No one on the left is opposed to individualism in as much as individualism means just being your own person. There's no reason we should accept anything that sounds like that as a starting premise. Even individual excellence isn't really something any left philosophy has a big problem with; the problem only arises when a person wants to keep far more than they could ever need for themselves, personally, at the expense of many others (i.e., selfishness).
I mean, good luck selling this on Americans. It seems much easier to point out that individualism is fine so long as it doesn't become selfishness. People already like individualism and dislike selfishness. Why not use that instead of fighting it? Do you honestly think the left is going to have success trotting out "you need to give up your individualism" to Americans?
Ok. It's not a new definition. It's the lib definition. We're marxists though. We use the marxist definition.
This is called opportunism. You want to compromise on what ACTUALLY needs to be done because it is long and difficult, sending the movement down the wrong path and setting it back.
What needs to be done can not be changed. Yes it is long and difficult. But it is what needs to be done. Failure to commit to the longterm effort and falling into opportunist mindset is how movements end up going off-track.
Yes. You must sell that to Americans. An outcome that must occur through mass class consciousness building and the spreading of theory. The people will come around to it when they understand what socialism is, what its goals are and what its fundamentals truly are instead of the distortions they have in mind currently. They will do this because they will realise that it is right, correct, and in their best interests. The problem is not a matter of convincing people emotionally, it's not an emotional-based topic, we are simply RIGHT, it is an educational problem, the people must be educated. That will occur over time as more and more and more people learn resulting in more that are out there also teaching.
Yes it is long and hard. Deal with it. Opportunism is not the way.
This is just "everything I don't like is liberal." There is no Marxist definition of "individualism," and certainly not one that applies to 21st-century culture wars slap fights.
You are wrong here. Do a little bit of self-crit and accept that a literal dictionary definition is generally going to reflect how people commonly use the term. That's the whole reason right wingers frame the debate as "individualism vs. collectivism" -- because it makes it sound like leftists want to take away your personal identity, which sounds shitty because it would be shitty. There's no reason we should be playing into that.
Show me anywhere in any sort of leftist writing that says "you have to give up your personal identity to achieve socialism." I must have missed that in Lenin.
Plenty of education and plenty of collective work gets done without asking people to abandon their personal identity. The problem is people who are selfish, not people who are their own person.
There certainly is a marxist definition. Just as there is a marxist definition of reactionary that differs heavily from the liberal one, as is the case with many words and phrases adapted into the communist lexicon but with altered intentions. In much the same way we use class to refer to social classes and their relationship to the productive forces and yet liberals refer to class as an ethereal and meaningless thing with no strict definition largely defined by some sort of ill defined amount of wealth.
To act like there aren't countless very different definitions for words between marxist usage and liberal usage highlights not actually engaging in the reading very much.
To be more precise, the Marxist definition of individualism is drawn from Max Stirner, which is laid out well in Chapter 3 of "German Ideology" by Marx and Engels:
The general point is that, under capitalism, you can not separate the individual and their relationship to production. Individualism under capitalism is brutal competition with everyone else within the class. It always will be. There is no separation of selfishness from individualism under capitalism. The ONLY way you can combat this is by the reduction of individualism and the collectivisation of society.
In a post-capitalist world you can then look towards moving away from complete collectivisation.
But yes, the marxist definition is strict and absolutely different to the generalised liberal one. The marxist individualism is strictly Max Stirner's individualism and nobody else's, as it was Stirner's individualism that Marx was countering in his works of the period.
With that said, Marx wanted the individual to remain. We're not supposed to become a borg. But the individualism of capitalist society must be countered in order for community and socialism to rise.
I'm not getting this at all from that excerpt, and I don't think it's accurate. I don't see how that excerpt is using "individuals" as any sort of term of art -- with a specific, non-standard definition -- either.
Yes, capitalism forces people into brutal competition. And sure, while engaging in that competition people act selfishly. But that doesn't mean that in modern America individualism and selfishness are synonyms. If you took a poll asking people if they think each word is positive, individualism would score quite a bit higher than selfishness. If you tell someone "you're very individualistic" vs. "you're very selfish" you're going to get a very different reaction. I see no reason to insist on a ~170-year-old definition of individualism (that isn't even clear, if it's a distinct definition at all) when we already have a word that describes the problems capitalism creates on a personal level (selfishness), and when the entire country uses a different, more modern definition of individualism.
The labels don't really matter, after all -- it's the concepts that are important. If someone wants to copy/paste Medicare for All into something called "FreedomCare," I'm not going to fight them on terminology if they have something that'll pass.
You've mentioned community a few times. Every single community I've ever encountered or even read about has involved individualism, in the sense that it means personal identity. What distinguishes real communities from groups of people who live near one another is how selfish the occupants are, or how willing they are to help one another out.
This is revisionism to justify opportunism because you want to avoid the longer and more difficult task of cutting through the distortions present in a population that has been propagandised against collectivism and in favour of individualism for a century. I understand why you would desperately want to avoid addressing that problem, it's a daunting prospect and the level of obsession with individualism present in the American psyche is terrifying.
The problem however is that if you do not cut through that propagandised population and create collectivisation the result of your revisionist revolution is far more likely to result in fascism, not socialism, and thus it would be better to have not engaged in revolution at all. Attempting to take shortcuts to reach the goal sooner is exceptionally dangerous, especially in the American landscape.
We don't have time for a longer solution. We're in a climate crisis, a pandemic, and an enormous economic collapse right now. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I don't see how "selfishness is bad, but go ahead, have your own individual identity while we help each other out" will lead to fascism.
Shortcuts? We don't know what the road to socialism will look like -- existing or past socialist countries got there in different ways, and trying to directly copy/paste the experiences of poor developing nations onto the imperial core is just begging for failure. History and Marxist theory are a useful map, but a map doesn't prepare you for all the potential issues along the way. It gives you some things to watch out for and some good advice, but ultimately you have to get from Point A to Point B on your own. And again, there's nothing in Marxist literature that says even non-selfish personal identities are incompatible with socialism. There's not even a theoretical map telling us not to do that even if you believe such a map can take you step by step to socialism.