As you may or may not know, our individualism is a result of our heritage. We take this for granted. This tradition does not exist in the east. Well there may be some hint of it with Buddhism.
Those that are so critical of those religious extremists need to realize that whether we recognize it or not the way we look at ourselves is the result of our religious tradition. We see ourselves as the intelligence in a otherwise ignorant existence. I know this is a generalization but bear with me. In our glorifying the human life we neglect all other life and the species extinction is ever accelerating.
This separation between ourselves and the “world” comes about by this cognitive distance between ourselves and creation. Many people claim that human beings are the only thing with value. It is this perspective why the world population is approaching 7 billion at the expense of all other life and natural beauty. This perspective is know as anthropocentrism. Anthropocentrism is a form of specieism. Anthropocentrism is discrimination of other species based on the seeming superiority of the human species or the lack of worth of other species, not unlike racism is the claim of superiority of one “race” over another. This singularity is one result of individualism.
There is no evidence for individualism. We are bound by material forces (e.g., physical, ecological, chemical etc). If we are spirit then we are not matter and if we are matter we are not spirit. We can’t be both as evidenced by the faulty supposition of Descartes problem of dualism where matter and spirit cannot interact because they are completely dissimilar (e.g., spirit is atemporal and aspatial, matter temporal and spatial). The idea of spirit in the religious sense or our ensoulment is a product of monotheism and obscures our connection with all life and matter.
Individualism results in egoistic selfishness. For the individual only the individual matters. Selfishness results in the class system in the USA. It results in sexism, racism, species extinction, greed, ageism etc. We don’t feel bound to or responsible for our fellow human, for life or for natural beauty. And of course individualism is nonsense. We are no more essential than anything else in the world. In a million years we all will most certainly be gone from the face of the earth if we don’t recognize and accept our connection with each other and the world around us.
This individualism whether based on specie, race, gender, age or whatever is subject to the divide and conquer mentality of our government. The government routinely divides us on the basis of class, race, gender etc. The ruling class gets 99/100 of the pie and leaves the other 1 hundredth for us to fight over. It’s a silly distinction and is used against us.
Its not an accident that this country is founded on freedom while being the antithesis of such. We have the largest prison population in the world, probably put the most to death, is presently engaged in a war to “liberate” Iraq’s where perhaps a million have died and all in the name of God our creator. What arrogance.
Voting rights originally were given to only white male property owners and blacks were sold into slavery for hundreds of years. When the Irish were brought here it was feared by the masters that they would unite with the black slaves so they were told that they were superior to blacks and because of this they would received certain prerogatives such as an extra head of cattle when their indentured servitude was satisfied.
We are born of the earth. We have evolved and therefore are linked with all other life and are dependend on all structures in the universe to survive. Individualism is just an excuse for narcissism. I don’t expect you to listen to what I have to say but anyways I thought I’d through it out to anyone that might think about it.
Throw off the ruling class ideology if you can and truly be free!