There are many different kinds of worldviews which compete on the world stage. Some are based on religion, a few based on politics, and others based on almost any idea one can think of. Your worldview is the lens you see life through, it shapes your view of almost everything around you. Individualism, as a human relational philosophy, is a worldview which is intended for only one part of your life – how you should relate to other human beings. Although narrow in scope, it is broad in implications. Your world will look much differently by adopting Individualism as a part of your total worldview.
Even the Golden Rule will look slightly different to an advocate of Individualism. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” In other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It doesn’t say to love people who share your skin color more than others, or people of your own gender more than others. It said to love all other people like you love yourself. Our society, which is breaking up into tribalistic groups based on something as superficial as gender, skin color, sexual orientation, etc., is not the example of the ethics of the Golden Rule. We are not advised to separate people into arbitrary groups and love some more than others.
Racists use grouping or collectivism as their worldview for human relations. They group people by the color of their skin, either dark or light, and assign negative values to them. Sexists do the same thing by putting an entire gender into a group and assigning a negative value to that group. Religious hatred is based on assigning negative values to a whole group of people who happen to believe in a different religion. You have to be a collectivist or tribalist to even create any of these hates. The only counter worldview is to think like an Individualist.
The philosopher Ayn Rand wrote about racism and described it this way:
“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage – the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. This means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character or actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”
An Individualist cannot be a racist, sexist, or hate someone only because of their religion. An Individualist views people as individuals, not groups. They don’t make any pre-judgments about another person until they actually get to know the person. An Individualist does not judge someone based on their ancestry, lineage, who their parents are, or any other factor that does not relate to that person as an individual. They consider each person a sovereign individual who is to be judged based only on his or her own unique character and actions.
An Individualist also does not take pride in the accomplishments of other people who may share their own skin color, gender or religion. They don’t believe in collective pride or guilt. They take pride in their own accomplishments, not another person’s. For example, should a light-skinned male take pride in the fact that Einstein, Beethoven, and Kant were light-skinned males? No. Should a woman take pride in the accomplishments of another woman? No. Should you take pride in your own accomplishments? Absolutely. This is the view of an Individualist.
An Individualist also feels no guilt for the actions of other people who may share their skin color, gender, or religion. This seems obvious, but there are individuals who try to teach other individuals to feel collective guilt. There is no such thing as collective guilt. Since we are sovereign individuals, how can we possibly be guilty for the actions of another individual? We can’t. Even if our family members did something horrible, we are not responsible for their actions. We do not choose who we are related to nor are we responsible for their character or actions.
Ayn Rand goes on to say:
“Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.”
Racism, xenophobia, sexism, religious hatred, and other such collective human evils would be eliminated if everyone practiced Individualism. Without groups to hate each other, the world would be a much better place. Human history has shown us what happens when groups of people think they are better than other groups – and go to war to prove it. It is time for human society to break away from grouping people altogether and adopt Individualism as the optimal human relational philosophy.
Center for Individuality 