Everytime I here individualism brought up by someone from Hexbear or Lemmygrad, it gets talked about as if it’s categorically bad and wrong. Why is that?
This goes against everything I’ve learned in the states, where we consider individualism a necessary part of being a responsible and moral person, whereas collectivism strips us of our humanity and turns us into subhuman insectoid creatures incapable of thought.
If individualism is taking a shower, brushing your teeth and going to school then it’s not a bad thing.
If individualism is blaming individuals for collective failures then its bad. Margaret Thatcher is infamous for saying “there is no such thing as a society”.
Eg. Look at jobs. Let’s say the market demands 100 jobs but the amount of people who want a job is 150. Then there is nothing any individual can do to ensure that there is full employment. 50 people will remain unemployed without collective action. The neoliberal “solution” would be to train the unemployed, turning it into an individual not having skills. However, training doesn’t create more jobs because jobs are determined by various other factors like total demand for goods backed by ability to pay. You are just swapping people in and out of employment. One person gets a job another loses it, at the end 50 people stay jobless.
I like this explanation