Collectivism and Individualism of Different Periods
Political philosophy has followed a large number of directions. The end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century presented the humanity face with two more political philosophies. As a consequence, the frameworks produced a vital effect upon the human lifestyle and the way of thinking. The two political philosophies are individualism and collectivism. The current paper aims to regard the development of thought of the two aforementioned trends and observe the changes which occurred in the human perception under the historic circumstances. More cases at https://essayelites.com/custom-essay-writing/.
The very term of individualism is known to appear in the nineteenth century in the epoch historically referred to as Enlightenment. Individualism presupposed the necessity of achieving the personal goals over the purposes of other people or groups. In other words, the requirements of the world and its compounds have to be sacrificed at the altar of person's intentions and desires. Hence, the human being and his/her private challenges and problems are much more important than the society and its permanent social issues. In addition, in the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe, a person was perceived as a part of the society, and was expected to aid and assist the communities. Nonetheless, the very notion of an individual contradicts the idea of community and the society's interests. Certainly, the people can compose various groups and communities. However, persons treat the private interest with crucial importance, contrary to the social ones.
The successful development of the individualism could not but have led to the appearance of the opposition, the movement which obtained the name of collectivism. Contrary to individualism, the collectivism political philosophy means the importance of social compound over the personal desires and intentions. In the beginning, collectivism was not the popular idea. However, it spread in the first part of the twentieth century. The idea received the most appreciation in the Soviet Union. In the course of time, especially after the World War II, collectivism served as a powerful tool of motivating people to work in order to restore the ruins after the War.
Collectivism was introduced to unite people and make them think about their future from the perspective of society, rather than from the point of view of personal wishes. The historians have a conviction that collectivism united people. Its main idea supports the fact that a person alone is not able to reach the highest tops. Moreover, the society would not be capable of achieving the crucial goals. In other words, the understanding of collectivism has been changing throughout the history periods. However, the essential basis of collectivism stays the same: any person's desires have to be at the background of the social and community needs.
Thus, the two political philosophies in question, collectivism and individualism, have undergone a number of changes since their appearance. However, the core ideas had not been changed. The basis for the individualism consists in the priority of the personal benefit over the greater good for the society. On the contrary, the collectivism presupposes the importance of the society over the personal wishes of the individuals. Certainly, both trends, which have been discussed in the paper, are characterized by the positive and negative features. Also, both individualism and collectivism have contributed to the development of society and human thought. The task of the world today is either to develop one of the theories or invent a new one, which would aim at satisfying the needs of the modern people.
