Unless humanity is in an inter-galactic confrontation with the Borg, there is really nothing to fear from “the collective.” I head Michael Campbell talk this week about a hypothetical scenario for Canada where the country would be split in two and in one half would live those who want small government and the other large government. One side would favour the private sector and a government involvement only in essential services, whereas the other would favour more social programs and government monopolies in some areas. One would favour the Individual, while the other would favour the “collective.”
Maybe it was the Star Trek influence and his fear of The Borg that caused Campbell to come up with such a ridiculous dichotomy. There are still individuals within the “collective” society and in either case, regardless of small gov or large, there is still a collective. He makes it sound like this collective left-wing mass of depersonalized humanity suffers a loss because they cannot get out there and earn as much money as they want or own as many things as they want. And oh the humanity if some of their money has to go into programs that help others in the community even if these others may not be as likeable others.
Read Utopia by Thomas More and see what I mean. It’s not a communist manifesto because More wasn’t a socialist. He was a humanist which means that he was concerned with a society that orders itself to allow for the greatest potential for human flourishing. We don’t really have that because our definition of human flourishing is being reduced to the myth of the “American Dream” where earning a bunch of money and buying stuff equals happiness. I think Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney tried this kind of world in the 80s, and we’re still paying for it.
