This week's Philosophy Questions:
1. Can societies filled with individualists ever work?
2. Is the herd mentality a natural phenomenon that holds our societies together?
3. Are groups merely placid & mediocre, or also highly dangerous?
4. Can we ever grow as a group, or only as an individual?
1. Can societies filled with individualists ever work?
2. Is the herd mentality a natural phenomenon that holds our societies together?
3. Are groups merely placid & mediocre, or also highly dangerous?
4. Can we ever grow as a group, or only as an individual?
Comments
But what kind of individualism, and what kind of altruism is a good one? Simplifying the question to only one type of individualism and altruism makes it easy to biased definitions and use the strawman fallacy
The more individuality you have, the more you risk clashing personalities. But there are still many authentic personalities that can harmonize.
But if the leader takes advantadge of herd mentality in favour of others over the self-interest, and listened critique instead of censor them, it would be very different.
A herd, on the other hand, would have to have dogmatic requirements in order to demand conformity.
But dogma is a choice.
Now… God is dead and we have killed him… who wash the blood off our hands?
The herd morphs. We morph. Our position within groups changes.
Whether it's the faults and flaws of the majority rule or the faults and flaws of the minority rule.
There are human flaws & imperfections in each & every society.
2. A society of herd groups will end up depending and sacrificing for others, moving withbtrends and having no critical thinking.
3. Therefore, groups are medeocre and also dangerous in the previous cases.
As a social animals, we need the group to survive. That made science and culture exist. So i believe it's impossible to grow as a cociety without independent critical thinking, but individual growth also needs a group to work in team.
Anyone thinks about other ways of thinking about this dichotomy?
This is now described at my journal page under "Perceptual Shift".
Will you be tongue tied?
Damir
I know the answer, but I find social media so useless and full of mediocrity that after years of giving brilliant posts and replies and being ignored, I refuse to tell anything anymore. 🐘🦌🐖🦘
I wouldn't want to be in a hyper-conformist culture either.
But one day we're going to have to find a way to foster a "community of individuals" that blends our need for authentic individuality with our need for valued interdependence.
It begins as an individual expression, but it simultaneously resonates as universal. And that's why for centuries people can feel less alone by reading it.
Universal wisdom exists.
Sometimes we must look beyond particulars and use abstractions. Fear not contradiction or paradox, they may be flaws in our understanding. Embrace the full power of wisdom using interpretation to uncover deeper truths.
As if they got credit for something I felt or thought because they felt or thought it first.
What they failed to understand is that wisdom isn't "invented" by a singular person.
Or buy goods at the store?
The depth of life depends on how it is lived.
Meaning come from all your relationships.
Many children are open and expressive and then adapt to their environments and societies - only developing into identifiable categories of individual or conformist down the road.
I'm particularly suspicious of psychological experiments that might attempt to measure conformity––
They don't pull people out of an anarchy meetup & invite them to a lab for an experiment. (& if they did, would they come?)
And don't we have to first define them, before we can attempt to quantify how many people fit into that definition?
In actuality, we're just thinkers. And in that sense, we have everything in common with the thinkers in any department.
I try to answer everybody individually, but with the amount of threads, it takes time for me to catch up, so please discuss amongst yourselves!
So we are responsible for our own development but are inevitably altered through our relationship with others.
I cannot think of a significant human achievement that didn't require cooperation.
Sheep also need a benevolent shepherd.
But power is corrupting & the temptation to abuse the herd crops up in every political system known to man.
So we need leaders who can regulate our own leaders. Or paradoxically, the herd needs to regulate its own shepherd.
6. 'Can the ‘mass man’ be enlightened when he’s in a group? Or is the journey of enlightenment only and always something an individual must undertake beyond the group?" The group/ sangha
by John Haspel
Anyway, there is no 'I' or 'we', we are all connected anyway, tree or otherwise 😅
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rakhine-events/
Sangha is NOT for me- shuddddder
True say, indeed.
Each individual spoke out about the abuse, but the permission structure of the whole created a domino effect.
Thus, individual & collective growth.
I've been going through grief & never have I understood this more.
My grief is deeply personal, but somehow reverbs in a very universal way with all those who have had grief before me.
You can also subscribe to my Substack and discuss in the chat. And you can unsubscribe any time you want.
Group and individual relations are never static, they may go in cycles, but also as sudden storms.
Evil looms when one side seek to impose its will upon the other. An eternal struggle to find balance as nothing is permanent except death.
Sure, as long as everyone individually agrees to cooperate. It’s like herding cats—chaos, but if you accept the absurdity, it’s oddly effective. Marcus Aurelius would just sigh and remind us: “What is good for the hive is good for the bee.”
Yes,but it’s also why we cheer at sports games and follow TikTok trends. Nature’s way of saying, “Stick together, or the saber-tooth tiger gets you.” Seneca: “The crowd is often wrong, but staying alive has its perks.”
Both. A group can be your book club or your mob with pitchforks. Epictetus would advise: “Focus on your own reasoning, but maybe don’t antagonize the mob. They’ve got torches.”
Growth starts within—but a group that’s grown individually becomes a forest, not a bonfire. Stoics would suggest: “Tend your tree; the forest may yet prosper.”
We exist separate from but also linked to an ever changing reality. We can face some of these changes alone, others only conjoint with other humans.
Naturally & unavoidably we must form reality-depended groups.
Which is not the individualism that might stop us from benefitting from mutual relationships.
My counter-argument: 'Individualism' is an illusion. The self-identification (or identification of some) as 'individualist(s)' is motivated wishful thinking.
Reality forces us to group & socialize to survive; only to which degree is optional.
Otherwise individualists become leeches who utilize the resources, rather than symbiotic participants in a cooperative society that mutually benefit from working together.
2. Yes, but it also is what fears societies apart.
3. Both.
4. Yes, we can grow as a group it just takes longer and requires the growth of individuals to help propel it.
Damnit⁸p
2. Yes
3. Don’t know
4. There needs to be some sort of equilibrium betwoon the collective and the individual.
This was never not the case.