Ask Lemmy

Yes and no. It depends on how Americanocentric your question is.

Many collectivistic societies are more conservative than individualistic societies; however, collectivistic societies trend to be less discriminatory to minorities and more forgiving.

What exactly do you mean "progressive"?

Question too vague

I think it helps to clarify that we are talking about the current US Progressive movement and not just the abstract definitions of the terms. US Progressives have non-economic goals (restoring and expanding civil rights), but they generally agree that society should take care of everyone, not just the rich. That means providing at least food, housing, and health care without regard to income. There are a lot of different ideas about how that could be done. Everything from a Basic Living Stipend within a largely capitalist economy to a adopting a fully socialist, or even communist, economic system.

"A rising tide lifts all ships." That's not strictly a progressive philosophy. More a philosophy held by people who aren't idiots.

When you look at parties, progressive ones are less likely to compromise with other progressive parties while conservative parties are happy to hate everyone together.

I don't think they all share the same view on that topic

Part of the confusion is that people sometimes misunderstand what all of these terms mean.

• Conservative= Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
• Progressive= Open to or favoring new ideas, policies, or methods.
• Collectivist= Someone who belives in the political theory that the people should own the means of production.
• Individualist= Someone who believes in the doctrine advocating freedom from government regulation in the pursuit of a person's economic goals.
• Right wing= The conservative or reactionary faction of politics.
• Left wing= The liberal or radical faction of politics.
• Liberal= Someone who adheres to the political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics
• Democrat= Someone who believes in social equality or discounts distinctions in rank.
• Republican= Someone who adheree to the political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.

I wouldnt say so. Its very depending on Person. I've seen progressives that are hyper individualistic and others that are more collectivists

Depends what you mean. I think 'progressives' are usually more collectivist in the economic / social democracy sense. But 'conservatives' are often collectivist in the sense that everyone should have same beliefs, same religion etc. I think that's something that people sometimes miss, that right wing people are solely motivated by bullying people for being 'different' or wanting to control people's private lives. They do both those things, but partly because some geninuely struggle to believe that different lifestyles can coexist. Everyone needs to have same sexuality and eat the same kinds of foods, so of course they want the collective choice to align with their personal preference.

As a left-wing person, I find it mind-boggling that people don't see the unfairness of billionaires and poverty coexisting. And beyond unfairness, the existance of wealth disparity makes things worse for the poor than if everyone was equally poor. But conservatives think that its none of anyone's business what happens in the bank account.

In his work The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt talks a bit about this. In my interpretation of the points he makes, humans aren’t more or less collectivist, but rather there’s points that some care for more than others. For example, left leaning individuals care more for the fairness across the group, while right-leaning individuals value conformity. From an evolutionary perspective, there’s a good reason to have increased conformity, though some would argue that in a modern world our differences are what make humanity stronger. I found this discussed it a bit, if you can’t get the book. https://www.highexistence.com/how-jonathan-haidts-6-moral-tastebuds-can-heal-a-divided-world/

He also makes a point that a shared mythology is vital to maintaining a group for a long term - communes seldom last through the second generation, while religious sects last centuries.

I’ve butchered the concepts (it is a several hundred page book), so if you’re able to get it from your library I think it’s worth reading it even if the concepts are somewhat tangential to the question you posed. It promotes a theory, which is simply one many ways to interpret a part of humanity.

In short, no, I don’t think that there’s a difference in the amount to which left or right are more communal; it’s the inclusion criteria of that community.

I don't really understand how this is debatable honestly. We live in a collective. We are trying to make rules and govern our collective. Who on earth still denies that there exist more humans than like 36? I am so sick of this shit

It really depends on what you mean by individualistic vs collectivist.

[massive generalization warning] Progressives think that the society should take care of a lot of problems (poverty, environment, equal access to education and what not), so you can consider them collectivists. But often the reason for that is such that the individual can achieve their own goals, thus they can be considered individualists.

Conservatives strive towards a uniform society, so they care about a uniform collective. In the other hand, they do that to support individual developments (mostly economical) in an evened out landscape. So they are also a mix of individualists and collectivists, they put the boundary between the two in a different place.

I would think generally it holds true. Most 'progressives' agree that social services like healthcare, childcare, welfare, etc. are a good thing and should be supported/funded as much as possible. These are all collective arrangements achieved through some sort of governing system (taxes, etc.); however, I think that's mostly as far as the general agreement usually goes. As soon as you get into collective food distribution on the same level as healthcare, it gets a bit thorny. Same goes for nationalizing any industry tbh (gasoline, telecom, mail).

Big difference with liberals and leftists being liberals are individualist while leftists are collectivist.