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It has been my experience that, once the definitions are commonly understood, most
of the disagreements come to an end. To the amazement of those who thought they were
bitter ideological opponents, they often find they are actually in basic agreement. So, to deal
with this word, collectivism, our first order of business is to throw out the garbage. If we are
to make sense of the political agendas that dominate our planet today, we must not allow our
thinking to be contaminated by the emotional load of the old vocabulary
It may surprise you to learn that most of the great political debates of our time – at
least in the Western world – can be divided into just two viewpoints. All of the rest is fluff.
Typically, they focus on whether or not a particular action should be taken; but the real
conflict is not about the merits of the action; it is about the principles, the ethical code that
justifies or forbids that action. It is a contest between the ethics of collectivism on the one
hand and individualism on the other. Those are words that have meaning, and they describe
a philosophical chasm that divides the entire Western world.1
1 In the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, there is a third ethic called theocracy, a form of government