edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis) (03/21/88)
When A and ~A *both* work (biologically === more surviving offspring) under different circumstances, evolution often produces a mixed solution in the gene pool with frequencies related to how often each works and to the payoffs by a Linear Programming model. Within this model, a valid inference from the observed frequencies of highly tribal and highly individualistic humans is that individualism doesn't *work* (as defined above) anywhere near as well as tribalism, but when it does, nothing else will do... Any ways, any coherent philosophy of individualism must somehow deal with the non-individualistic majority. Making them wrong will just make them reach for torches and pitchforks. Please flame, I love antinomies.
prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) (03/31/88)
In article <2954@gryphon.CTS.COM>, edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis) writes: > Within this model, a valid inference from the observed frequencies >of highly tribal and highly individualistic humans is that individualism >doesn't *work* (as defined above) anywhere near as well as tribalism, but >when it does, nothing else will do... > > Any ways, any coherent philosophy of individualism must somehow >deal with the non-individualistic majority. Making them wrong will just >make them reach for torches and pitchforks. Thank you for making a beautiful point. The individualism these people proclaim can only exist in a vacuum. In the real world with real people, sometimes even they admit the need to "compromise" their integrity as individualists. Actually it is no compromise at all to admit that they have to account for other people's existence when considering their actions. The only scary element is the body of so-called individualists who insist to the end that this is not true, that there is no need to compromise, that they need not consider the existence of others in evaluating their plan of action. They would be laughable if they weren't so abominable to deal with in everyday life. But you're right about one thing: the strategy of the superindividualists is to "make them (the rest of the world) wrong," to declare that the needs and wants of the other people in the world just don't matter because they're wrong. If the individualist dogma ever became the status quo, it would be the other people, people like that infamous guard, who would be the only real individualists in the world. (Of course this is no different from many other dogmatic systems, but it's amusing to watch the individualists claiming that their system IS different from the other dogmatic social systems.)