Individuality versus groupthink

Individuality is always preferable to the personal needs of the individual. However, groupthink is also important to the group survival needs of everyone. Both need to be encouraged for any society to survive.

Groupthink I would define as that which any group from 2 to infinity needs to do to survive as a group.

Individuality I would define as that which makes one individual distinct from others.

However, without talented, individualistic and often eccentric people to create the innovations necessary for the billions to survive well human civilization would still be back in the dark ages with maybe 100 million people or less on the planet right now.

When individuality is the only law of the land then we live in a world of warlords. When groupthink is the only law of the land we have a large despotic nation that stifles creativity and individualism at every level.

So, civilization has always been a balancing game between the rights of the individual and the rights of the masses. Now we are coming to a conflict period of these individual and group rights right now. In times of plenty these problems don't come up as much but the next 10 to 20 years could be both politically awful or even worse, internationally bloody. This is not really the fault of any one person or even any one nation. It is an awful but necessary outcome of a world economic system out of balance.

The last years since Reagan have seen an unbridled capitalism without restraint of any good laws to keep a balance. As a result the middle and lower classes of the world have tended to become poorer even in the United States and Europe. This was a very bad sign to begin with and likely would have been addressed in a timely and useful way except for 9-11 and the War against Terrorism. However, the war against terrorism is much like the War on Drugs first declared by the United States and Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For all intents and purposes we lost that war worldwide and are still losing it now as the gang wars in Mexico are now moving into the United States with many people dying every day. Likewise the War on Terror is a war that cannot ever be won by soldiers. It is a war that will only in the end be won by education, birth control, tolerance and humanity. There is no other way that any thinking person sees for this to ever end otherwise.

So, because of 9-11 and the War on Terrorism the free world's economic system has collapsed. Its system will not return as it was ever without a serious redesign because people are not stupid enough to invest their money without expecting and getting something real in return. It is only human nature to only invest in things they can reasonably expect a good outcome. There is no place like that right now except maybe in cash in a bank safety deposit box somewhere or gold, Platinum or something else tangible like property. But even in real estate it is location,location,location. Simply owning property unless the owner owns the property now outright and can afford the property taxes isn't a good idea in many cases anywhere on earth right now because of the instability of everything. Now is a good time to own everything free and clear and a time to want to be there on your property for many years or to rent it out.

I don't know how a new balance will be struck between individual rights and group rights but here it comes ready or not!