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February 6, 2016
Individualism vs Generalization
February 26, 2012
Two Different Kinds of Moral Standards:
The social moral standards are set up for establishing social stability. This includes laws, religion doctrines and common social customs (based on traditional ideology). The humanistic standard is based on our conscience, which belong to our nature. The former favors more on social needs, latter more on individual rights.
History of ethics seems to involve from strict collective (social) rules that prohibited most individual desires or needs, to be more tolerant on individual rights. Examples such as marriage, patriotism, homosexuality, religious, etc. all demonstrated this route.
April 28, 2010
"fit in", bully, and culture revolution
Image via Wikipedia
I come to this country for individualism. It’s been almost 15 years. Now, I have to say, yes, there is much more room for individualists than in China, but, still not as much as I expected, especially now in teenagers' groups.
Parents in this country worry so much more about kids' "fit in" than kids' interest or curiosity about knowledge and skills. And the tragedies of young kids' being hurt are getting serious (even bully to death). It’s terrible! I have to say, those bullies remind me Red Guards during Cultural Revolution in China.
It seems to me, that both capitalism and communism do not guarantee the good nature of human, and both of them do not bring evil spirit to human either. What really produces man-made disasters from time to time, I believe is the fear of being alone. That's what Eric Fromm pointed out in his book "escape from freedom" longtime ago. He thought that most people didn't know how to enjoy freedom, didn't know how to be responsible to their freedom, instead, they escaped from it, because freedom brought them loneliness. And to avoid loneliness, people could do anything, even killing, because as long as they did in group actions, they would feel “happiness” of feeling “belong”.
I am more and more convinced that Eric Fromm told some universal truth here. And collectivism is always dangerous, no matter it is from communism, or capitalism.