What, today, or in the 18th century? :)

I don't think there's any problem with it--I'm an individual. 'Individualism', taken broadly, means I can do what I wish. Is it good for a state? Maybe not. But what's good for a state may not be good for me, and I won't survive the state. And even nurtured to perfection through controlled 'collectivism' it would still collapse. :grin: Then there's the question whether a state's good at all. Hard to say, thousands of years after they were made. Why did we make states? In any case I think an individual, someone that's truly one, that advocates collectivism is just shooting himself in the foot. Look at communist China or Russia. So it's come back to whether a state's good in the first place, i.e. someone ruling you. If that's going to be the case, individualism to me is just a minimization of his control, or we might say 'checks and balances'. I'm sure collectivism is better for the whole, in many not immediately defineable ways, but in any state there need to be people that rule over someone, and these people at least, or someone, is empowered to individualism--the ruler--and if his individualism isn't like yours, well you may wind up with your head on a pike. So, what's best for me, is best for me, basically. :smile:

I wouldn't venture to say people (most of them) act of their own volition, though one could say that, given one's own volition might be to do what others are doing. But I think I'm speaking too obscurely. In your proposition, either or, yes I think you're probably right, as such things go people act of their own volition. But if they get in trouble, then they might be able to pass off the blame on someone else. However it would be a mistake to say some people aren't greatly influenced by others. However you have a fair question. Maybe the determining factor shouldn't be one or the other, but exterior things, like the grand good. I mean after all don't people that do what others do represent a kind of collective? So it's an aggregate mass in consideration, not inviduals. Are its actions good, or bad? Perhaps too great a focus on an individual is overlooking that most are, well... otherwise. :)

Oh thanks, I'm glad to be here. :smile:

If every new generation is a degeneration from the last, surely we should be extinct by now?

The constant social change didn't begin till the industrial age really. Where it will end up no one knows (or so I flatter myself who hasn't figured it out yet).

I agree with your second post (or I think it's the second post, your response to Mr. Wood). Experience has taught me much, and I got none of that really, or at least not useful experience I think, from communication on the Internet. The message board, I think, is becoming a real problem now. No not this one (well not principally) but ones where people go generally to share the same ideas. So their knowledge, and I think you've already suggested this, is just repeated again and again, in the group. Things are held to be true that may not be. A lack of experience, and a repetition of shared knowledge, reinforces (perhaps) a false view, one that, also incidentally, may reinforce seclusion from reality--and thus experience. Problems I think are a given in the future, catastrophic and cataclysmic ones are the concern. :smile:

As to the faults of the young, well I don't think I was ever much in control of my life really, before a certain age. And people of certain dispositions, of course, follow certain roads, appertaining to their own time. And so like streams converging it seems to be a continual process, and although not strictly analogous, to my view, unstoppable. That's a hundred million streams (supposing we're speaking of the U.S.A.) Need a mighty large dam to brick that up. :smile: But you did mention the role of parents, though I'm not sure that's any different. Same values (general 'baby boomer' type people, live and let live and what else one might infer), same following a course, same unstoppable flow. It's these darn machines I tell ya! :wink:

Yes there's not only something intrinsic to it, that is the essence of the industrial age. And it was happening well before the '50s. Constant change. And as has been noted, before the industrial age, the world didn't--couldn't--change. The Anglo Saxons ruled England. The peasants farmed. The Normans conquered it. The peasants farmed. The religion was paganism. The peasants farmed. The religion was Christianity. The peasants farmed. Communication (no newspapers or even printing press) was a large part of it probably. But most of the idea of historical change before the industrial age, to my understanding, was limited to the world of the literate. Even if the church had wished to change the populace completely, I'm not sure they would have had the means, or the lasting power to enforce it. Custom was strong, and as the one predominant thing of the pre-industrial age that has remained, that is it, I think, but not always concretely, to my mind. It is custom I think that is responsible for all the differences in countries in the world today. The one force impossible to change (except slowly), but I don't think we see it necessarily, it is mutated and involved in the variations among various countries with comparable technology.

How can anyone disagree with you? However your conclusion, or your hope at least (at the end of the post) however right, may be somewhat wanting of possibility. :smile: I realized a while ago worrying about a country of 330 million people, which I only assume exists (from what I've heard from the TV and such) may not be the best use of time. However perhaps the solution, on a personal level, may be as much to the point, even if never quite attaining to it. In layman's terms, looking out for number 1. :smile: The way I see we can do that is to find a mate and do something constructive. However cross referencing the bible and my own preference (at the ripe young age of 36, yes I'm a bachelor ladies :smile: ) reveals perhaps an impediment to that, and yet I don't think I'm going off topic yet. So it's a chicken or egg type thing. How do we improve America if it's hard even to get a family going? Takes two to tango. :smile: