No doubt a trick to make some point. My guess would be Hitler, Mao, or some other despot who began their life idealistically, but became a corrupt individual through the intoxication and abuse of their personal power over other individuals. You fail to read properly if you conclude my opinion is that the collective should be of greater value than the individual. The individual and the group are necessarily of equal value in a harmonious society if we speak in the ideal sense. My perspective is that of a balance between the two is the best solution to the problems of the conflict that naturally comes when individuals of different desires and objective, different ideologies, and different needs are forced to co-exist in a society. Their mutual survival is ultimately a dance of interdependency. The real question where the truth can be found is: Are the greatest accomplishments of mankind a product of pure individualism, pure collectivism, or a product of the two working in together in the harmony that comes from cooperation and a vision of the big picture.
Rhetoric, you say. devoid of substance. "...heaven for climate; hell for society." X-X < ____________
How much MORE TIME shall we give this "philosophy" This Rhetoric??! How many more LIVES innocent shall we offer up in the name of This Drivel?! Milton lives! he goes by name of ARogueTrader! X-X < _______________
ART, I wasn't being all that tricky about it, but that was indeed a quote from Tim McVeigh's personal favorite- The Turner Diaries. Now you'll probably say that racism is a 'bad' form of collectivism...but there are also 'good' kinds of collectivism. Well, I don't think so. "Are the greatest accomplishments of mankind a product of pure individualism, pure collectivism, or a product of the two working in together in the harmony that comes from cooperation and a vision of the big picture." <b>Certainly pure individualism.</b> "I don't work with collectives. I don't consult, I don't co-operate, I don't collaborate.... ....I don't think a man can hurt another, not in any important way. Neither hurt him nor help him." ... "The 'common good' of a collective, a race, a class, a state was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. ....Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results." 'Howard Roark' in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.