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What is the most important thing about you?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on September 12, 2006

in choices and individualism

. 5 Comments

If you believe your skin color is the most important thing about you, you are wrong.

If you believe your nationality is the most important thing about you, you are wrong.

If you believe your gender is the most important thing about you, you are wrong.

If you believe your heterosexuality or homosexuality is the most important thing about you, you are wrong.

All of the above beliefs make as much sense as thinking that you are defined by your hair color, eye color, height, and so on.

Why? Because all of them were “decided” before you were born! You didn’t choose any of them.

An individual is defined by his or her choices. Those are the only things in his life that are up to him or her.

And, yet, people give a huge importance to skin color, gender, nationality and so on, as if one of those was their most important quality, their main reason to be proud. It probably gives a comfortable feeling of “belonging”… but belonging to what? It’s not even some group you chose to join! You didn’t decide, or do, anything.

Are all your deeds and your personality so small, so insignificant, that they’re eclipsed by the fact that you were born in a particular country instead of any of the others? Don’t you see how you are diminishing yourself, as an individual, by believing that the most important thing about you was randomly “decided”?

The facts that I’m male, white, Portuguese and heterosexual don’t define me. They’re all parts of what I am, but not the most important parts. I was born that way. What defines me is what I did afterwards. What I chose to do - either good or bad, right or wrong. My choices.

We’re all individuals, and we’re much more than our genes or our place or birth.

Individualism and X-Men: The Last Stand

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on September 10, 2006

in collectivism and individualism

. 0 Comments

I’d like to draw your attention to this blog post: X-Men 3: Libertarian Masterpiece.

An excerpt:

The major development in the 3rd film is the creation of a “cure” for mutation. Any mutant exposed to it will lose his or her special powers and become a regular human. Though it is offered on a volunteer basis, the mutants are divided between those who would do anything for the chance at a “normal” life and those who would do anything to protect the mutant “identity.” It is no small irony that all of this takes place in San Francisco, of all places.

Things escalate and battle lines are drawn. What had been a completely voluntary cure becomes less so. At this point, we recognize the twin bigotries of social conservatism and identity politics. On the right, we have the populist masses and the government who are driven by fear of that which is different. On the left, we have members of minority groups who place their group identity above all else, and who are driven by fear of the loss of that identity. Any mutant desiring the cure is a traitor. Any mutant deviating from the group’s stance is a threat. Therefore the cure, and its supporters, must be eliminated.

The X-Men offer a third way, the only way not driven by bigotry: Individual choice, not decisions forcibly made by society or an identity group. One of the X-Men decides that she would rather be normal than a mutant. Instead of denying that choice or deeming her a traitor, she is told to think about what is best, personally, for herself. Individuals who mean no harm to anyone deserve the right to control their lives. This is the heart of libertarianism.

I don’t think I could have said it better.

Continue reading ‘Individualism and X-Men: The Last Stand’

Reply to hynkle: collectivism and the individual

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on August 31, 2006

in collectivism and individualism

. 17 Comments

In reply to this comment from hynkle:

I was also quite taken by The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged when I first read them. They quite literally changed my life. My worldview underwent a significant change. But as I’ve been living since then, I’ve come to realize that it seems that her philosophy misses something crucial. The individual is as sacred a thing as we can have in this natural world. If we take the individual as something of such great importance, how much more important then must the collective be?

Part of the difference, I am thinking, may be that I look at the collective as a group of precious individuals, while most simply look at the collective as a lumpy mishmash of humankind.

What do you think of my view of collectivism? Is this what it is that Rand so disliked, or am I talking about something different?

Since the question is interesting, but offtopic for that thread, I’ll reply to it here:

Her philosophy is indeed missing some important things; for instance, nature is something wonderful, and she (and her characters) had no use for it, except as resources. But, about collectivism, I think she was completely right.

And why is that? Because, unless you’re talking about the Borg, there’s no such thing as “the collective”.

“The collective”, or “the group”, is just a term which a number of less ethical individuals use when they want you to sacrifice yourself for them. There’s no such thing as “society as a whole” (whose needs, of course, are more important than individual ones); the best contribution you can give to society is to be a great, heroic, creative being - but you should be doing it for yourself, not for society. The fact that others also gain by it is just a bonus.

But if you sacrifice your own needs, hopes, dreams and happiness because of the needs of “the group”, nobody is really gaining. You’re just destroying yourself, and they will need to move on after their latest victim (you) is drained.

You may say: “but if, say, 10 individuals agree in something, shouldn’t their opinion ‘count’ 10 times as much as mine?”. No. It doesn’t work that way. They’re still individuals, and each one doesn’t “count” more than you do. And if they are so low as to use their number to convince you that their needs are more important than yours, then they should “count” even less.

I have no problem with a group whose goal is to produce, to create. But a group whose purpose is to demand from individuals only deserves contempt.

This is my opinion. If I misunderstood your meaning, please let me know.

(I know you didn’t even mention “sacrifice”, but, again, without sacrifice of the individual, “the collective” is meaningless. There’s no such thing, and nobody ever talks about “the greater needs of the group / society / humanity” without talking about individual sacrifice.)

Some phrases I find quite annoying

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on August 14, 2006

in individualism, intelligence and thinking

. 1 Comment

“Your problem is that you think about things too much.” No. The “problem” is that you think, period… in a world where what is “normal”, what almost everyone does, is not think at all, and live in a state of permanent apathy, in which you don’t feel anything bad… or good. Living implies thinking, and thinking implies feeling. But people are such cowards that it’s “abnormal” to think, to feel or to live. They just go on, like automatons.
“People, these days, are much too individualistic.” Whoever says that is, desperately, in need of being hit with a dictionary on their head - a very heavy and hard one, if possible. Because it only shows that they don’t know what “individualistic”, or “individualist”, mean, at all. If they knew, they wouldn’t see it as a fault (hint: mankind is not mean to live like an ant colony), and, more importantly, would never say that people, these days, are such. Looking around me, I see very little individualism… what I see a lot of, instead, are stupidity, pettiness and smallness. Individualism is heroic, not mediocre… look around you, and tell me which of the two you see more of.
“<insert band name>? Ah, I only like <insert song name>.”. Really? Just that one? You know all the others, then? You know any of the others? Ah, so you never actually heard them, right? Then stop saying such idiocies.

Individualism, collectivism and… room heat!?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on December 6, 2005

in collectivism, humor and individualism

. 7 Comments

Warning: this one is a bit … let’s say, for laughs. While I believe it, I’m also aware that if someone was telling it to me, I’d begin to think that he or she was going a bit too far, maybe “losing it”… So, please, don’t take it too seriously.

One of the big differences between individualism and collectivism is that the former believes in individual responsibility, where the latter doesn’t.

For instance, if a man becomes a criminal, individualism says it’s his own responsibility, while a collectivist will say it was his “environment”, his “upbringing”, his “genes”, or, in a more general way, “society’s fault”.

Conversely, if a man brilliantly succeeds in some field, a collectivist will say that he was “lucky” to have such opportunities, or such an education, or something - while the individualist position is that that man is responsible for his own achievement, and has a right to be proud. (that doesn’t mean he didn’t have help, but it would be actual help (such as the parents who took care of him as a child, the teachers who taught him, a partner who worked together with him), not “his environment”, or “his upbringing”, or some other crap.)

Now, let’s move to a completely different field: the heating in an open space office. No, really, bear with me.

Continue reading ‘Individualism, collectivism and… room heat!?’

Misguided consumer “patriotism”

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on November 16, 2005

in collectivism and individualism

. 6 Comments

A co-worker sent me, a while ago, an email with a link to a page, in Portuguese, telling people about our “duty” to our country to buy Portuguese products, in order to “support national production”, because “by buying foreign products, it forces national producers to raise their prices”. The co-worker seemed, herself, to support that point of view, and I’m sure that if I talked about it in the office, most people would agree that it was a “noble” thing to do, even if they didn’t want to inconvenience themselves by paying more than they were forced to.

And yet, I could only think about an article I read a few years ago in the Ayn Rand Institute web site, called “Buy American is UN-American“. It applies, of course, whatever your country is.

Without wanting to repeat the article’s content here, the following is a translation of my reply to my co-worker, which I wrote before re-reading the article linked above:

The consumer should always choose the best product, that with the best quality/price ratio. That’s it. If we begin to choose national products, even though they’re WORSE, we’re doing 2 things:

admitting that we’re some poor incompetent slobs who can’t do anything well;
telling national companies that they don’t need to create or manufacture quality products, because even if they’re trash we’ll still buy them out of “patriotism”.

The result of that is:

as consumers, we get worse and worse products, and worse and worse deals;
internationally, our products will come to be known as shoddy, low-quality garbage, which will mean increasingly fewer exports - if any at all.

On the other hand, if we simply buy what is best and has the best relationship between quality and price, we are “encouraging” our companies to do better, and making sure they are competitive - both nationally and internationally. Besides, we’ll have better quality at lower prices.

Believe me: if you’re buying national products even though you know they are worse and more expensive than the foreign competition, you’re not “supporting your country,” you’re harming it.

The misconception of individualism

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on July 26, 2005

in definitions and individualism

. 7 Comments

In many blogs, sites, articles and so on, one tends to see a lot of opinions similar to the following: “oh, the relationship didn’t work out because he was too much an individualist!”. Or “people are way too individualistic these days, nobody cares about others”.

Apparently, people think of “an individualist” as “a manipulating, selfish, self-centered bastard who uses people and is incapable of caring about anyone”.

Which is quite a weird definition, because it doesn’t have anything to do with the word!

Continue reading ‘The misconception of individualism’