Essay On Individualism And Collectivism

Philosophers have debated for so long on the issue of Individualism and Collectivism. Question which frequently is object of importance is that what can be seen as a basic unit of a Society, either it’s me or we. This debate has completely changed the dimensions of the world. Psychologists who are interested in the cultural implications for the individual’s psychological functioning seem to have agreed upon the most important dimensions of cultural difference, that is, individualism and collectivism.
We can find the first intellectual exchange on these views in the normative debate between the Sophists and Plato in the fifth century BC. Individualism and collectivism were deemed as antagonistic and have largely been since. For example, the Sophists promoted personal agency, that is, the individuals are in charge of their own life and free to act as they choose without following the group norms while Plato criticized them for not having moral standards of what is good and proper and advocate a civic life. Plato’s Republic that expounded an ideal state governed by philosopher king has been considered a collectivist text
These are competing philosophies, collective here means a community or a group of people, in which human is part of it regardless of the consent. More often or not, collective is a

“America works best when its citizens put aside individual self-interest to do great things together—when we elevate the common good,” writes David Callahan of the collectivist think tank Demos. Each and every citizen should compromise his own interest when it contradicts with the common interest. It is not “the freedom to be as selfish as I want to be,” or “the freedom to be left alone,” but “the freedom to attend to one’s duties—duties to God, to family, and to neighbors. Not only equal opportunities but also “equal results” is requirement of extended form of collectivism named