Collectivists for Individual Liberty!

David brooks suggests that individualism's days are numbered, and collctivism will be the "mentality" of the future: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1218553522-hV6Fy6uMmwgQx4qTi+Ca/w
He reckons that would be autocrats might find the collectivist "mentality" attractive.

I used to think of "collectivism" and "authoritarianism" as correlated concepts, but I have abandoned this way of thinking. Both "collectivists" and "individualists" can be authoritarians or libertarians or anything in between. Of course, I'm referring to the psychological and sociological meanings of these terms rather than political meanings that have little to do with the other senses of the words.

Moreover, I have come to think of these terms not as psychological or cultural traits or tendencies but as skill sets that have been differentially developed by individuals and are differentially distributed in various cultural contexts. Most of us are entirely capable of seeing the world in collectivist/contextual terms as well as individualist/categorical terms, and we do, all the time. Some of us have been trained in individualistic/categorical interpretation with little attention given to collectivist/contextual skills. I reckon that the former is the province of state schooling in the West and that the latter is stressed within the various collectives and communities to which we belong.

The state has an interest in setting itself up as the only collective that really matters and to which all other collectives are subordinate. It can do this by reinforcing individualism and setting up a social structure in which the relationship of the individual to the state is the only or most important one. All other relations and contexts are mediated by and through the state. Families are reduced to the weak "nuclear" form and depend on the state for enforcement of the few familial obligations that the state has defined as legitimate. Other collectives are tolerated and even encouraged to the extent that they recognize their position as subordinate to the state and to the extent that they advance the cause of the state. Does your church display a flag in the sanctuary of God and register as a nonprofit corporation according to the dictates of the state? Does the pastor encourage obedience to civil authority and patriotism? If he does not, he will be made a pariah, won't he Rev Wright?

The state is the only collective that can lay claim to your whole substance and make good on its claims with violence. To some extent, all other collectives are potentially subversive and must be rendered suspect or, in the alternative, interpreted in individualistic terms so as to temper their hold on their members. You have a personal relationship with God, don't you, rather than being one member in community of the Body of Christ? See the difference? You are a consumer more than a citizen. Your children are supposed to grow up and become independent, and you don't want to be a burden on your children when you are old, so you work through the state to educate your young and secure retirement security. No need for multigenerational families here or any family form that makes people less dependent on the state.

In this view, collectivism can be a revolutionary force for liberation from the state. Voluntary cooperative and collaborative activities can supplant the "functions" of the state, and we might be able to see the state for what it really is.