Bystanders are never innocent
Two of the most dangerous things in our society are individualism and apathy. They go hand in hand. After all, how can you be apathetic if you have a sense of empathy and community with others?
The mantra of today’s culture…
I live in my world. You live in yours. If I happen upon a situation that I deem morally reprehensible, I do not have to think further about it. It doesn’t affect me. You don’t affect me. If you hurt someone, it’s their fault for not taking proper actions to prevent the situation, or not stopping it from perpetuating.
Poor people must pull themselves up from deep within the fissures of society, without anyone’s aid.
No, I am not a witness to your pain; your pain is your own. I am not a witness at all. I am blind. I am numb. I do not pretend to be a compassionate human being; I do not believe in altruism.
I refuse to see. Wrap me up in your blanket of denial. I am only one person, so what harm could that do?
That sounds like a solid argument against apathy, but it doesn’t really seem to address individualism, which you mention as the other problem. Perhaps you are defining individualism as “lacking in empathy”, which would explain your point. However, that has always sounded to me a little bit like the tired argument leveled by religious people against atheists, which runs something along the lines of “but if you don’t believe if god, then how come you don’t go around murdering people?”. Just like the presenter of the argument above doesn’t believe that an atheist could develop a morality that isn’t handed to them on stone tablets, it seems that your argument is that people who follow a personal philosophy of their own making rather than adopting a collectivist philosophy from their community likewise cannot possibly form any sort of reasonably moral code which would encourage them to not let someone be stabbed to death.
For starters, it seems that if many individuals are left to follow their own path, it’s unlikely that many of them will decide that what makes them happiest is to totally ignore the existence of other humans. Much altruism is selfishly motivated on some level. When Gandhi spent time performing the worst jobs he saw being done in his society as his “bread labour”, he didn’t hide the fact that he thought that one of the valuable outcomes of the process was the effect it had on himself to do so.
A final point of interest is that you are stating, perhaps rightly so, that the apathy that you see is very common, probably even the norm. If so, then isn’t your rejection of it a philosophy held only by a minority, and thus impossible without a fair amount of individualism? I don’t raise that just to be a pedantic devil’s advocate. I’m concerned that homogeneity of culture, thought and morals will tend to mean that social problems don’t get addressed.
I think you’re tarring all individualists with a brush shaped specifically for libertarian american rednecks.
Taking action when someone is hurt seems to me to be a combination of a moral code and the courage or will to act on it. The latter, as you say, could be defined as a lack of apathy. Regarding the former, there are many ways to develop a moral code. I’m not so wise that I claim to know the best way, but I’d be a little concerned if there was only one way.
Craig, we’ve been through this before, so I can’t help but feel a bit annoyed at your argument. You are suggesting that I am arguing against individuality, not individualism. I have told you my definitions in the past.
Individualism is just what I explained. It is about ignoring others for your own short-term “self-interest,” and living in a vacuum. Individuality is being who you are and recognising that part of who you are is inextricably linked to your community and your relationship with other people. That is not the same as getting your morals only from a community, and you know that I spent a lot of time finding myself and defining my own ethics, so that is a ridiculous argument indeed. But part of defining my ethics was seeing how individuals effect each other, and understanding my part in the community of humanity as a whole.
Individualism is what anarcho-capitalists preach; individuality is what anarchists value.
Taking action when somebody is hurt is moral code period. It is what we are programmed to do as a social animal; we must act AGAINST our humanity to ignore somebody who is lying on the street dying. It does not take courage to call the ambulance when a man is bleeding on the street.
Of course we’ve been through this before, that’s why I dived in with such relish.
I see the distinction that you’re making between individualism and individuality, but I’m not sure that your definition is spot on either. To me, when we wack an “ism” on the end, we’re turning the concept into a life philosophy, ie a philosophy centered around the individual (presumably the self). We might call such a philosphy celf-centered, egoist, or many other names. However, you define this as “ignoring others for your own short term self-interest”. To me, that seems like you’ve added a bunch of extra baggage onto the term “individualism”, possibly with a bit of value judgement into the mix.
What is it about individualism that might suggest short-term thinking? Even if we agree that the individualist (if that’s the right word), is constantly pursuing their own interests at the expense of others, I don’t think there’s any particular reason to suggest that this need be done in a shortsighted way. I don’t doubt that some such people are short-term thinkers, as are perhaps some non-individualist people, but I don’t accept that the philosophy itself implies a correlation.
You definition of individuality is spot on, and I admit I let that creep into my arguments somewhat. I think we can both agree that there’s nothing wrong with individuality, and put that aside.
“Taking action when somebody is hurt is moral code period”. That’s a strong statement. I can see some truth in it, but I’m unwilling to concede that there’s such a universal truth to morality. I might disagree with somebody’s morals, but I’d be hard pressed to argue that morals other than the ones above are simply not possible. I agree that we do have a lot of biological programming, and that much of this stems from our survival need to co-operate. I am certainly aware that cooperation (within a community) has tremendous survival benefits.
However, we also have a fair bit of evidence that the survival benefits of cooperation don’t always extend beyond one’s tribe. Mindless aggression doesn’t work too well either, but Dawkins demonstrates fairly convincingly that tit-for-tat is a fairly reasonable strategy to practice with other tribes. We may have better practices that we could use instead now, I’m just speaking here of our biological programming.
The distinction that I’m making here is a fairly semantic one. You’re arguing that a philosophy of individualism will lead people to ignore the universal moral truth that hurt people should be helped. I’m suggesting that someone who is motivated entirely by self-interest can easily realise that helping others in their community helps them in a very real and selfish way. The practical difference between individualism with such forethought, and a more collectivist philosophy is basically invisible, they will result in the same action. However, it’s you who brought up philosophy, and obviously the motivation is different, even if it leads to the same act.
And finally, totally not on the topic of my rant above. You mention that it does not take courage to call the ambulance. Are you sure? I think you’re speaking there out of anger and frustration that people might not always do it. In a first aid course, they tell you that if you’re giving CPR, you can get someone else to call the ambulance, but get them to report back afterwards and tell you how long it will take. This isn’t because you really need to know, it’s because some people quietly disappear and never make the call. It seems bizarre to me, but apparently it’s not uncommon. I think we can probably assume that these people are not caught in a moral quandary, but are instead afraid and unable to act, perhaps even on a level they are almost powerless to control.
It seems obvious to you or I to step in and do whatever needs doing. Some people struggle with this though. If our goal is to help ensure that the help is always given, I don’t think we should dismiss that struggle, no matter how hard it is to understand. I don’t have any great suggestions, but perhaps when people do demonstrate such courage (if it is courage), we should praise them, and when they fail to, well I’m not entirely sure what we should do, but blame isn’t quite right.
“Individualism is just what I explained. It is about ignoring others for your own short-term “self-interest,” and living in a vacuum.”
That’s a strawman, at least that’s not what individualists mean by the term. Some of them do, but not all are egoists and hedonists, and even not all egoist anarchists have a total disregard for others.
It’s fine if you choose to define individualism that way, and argue against it, but it won’t help when dealing with those who do call themselves individualists. I’m with you on that an individual’s property shouldn’t be allowed to trump others’ liberty, etc. but to me, individualism and egoism means merely recognizing that my needs come first (generally– I’m fine if you ‘steal’ my stuff to save someone though), ’cause my existence as an individual is necessary if I’m to help others.
As for collectivism, typically the “anarcho-”capitalist strawman of it is a view of everyone being forced to be altruistic. A world where I’d be coerced to give up my stuff to you and vice versa. Or a world where the collective majority robs a individual person for the sake of the greater good. (That’s what they then will use to argue for capitalism.)
I’m a funny mix. I am an exceptionally apathetic and detached person insofar I couldn’t care less about empathy or emotions. Call me inhumane, but there is technically no reason why I should help a dying man if it doesn’t benefit me. I think my issue is that I shouldn’t be putting others’ needs over mine, if my existence comes first before I can help them. Yet I’ll help others because I do recognize the importance of equality, and I’ve often found myself acting more ‘empathetic’ than most others around me. Like I said, I’m weird.