I am the 00.0000000003%

[akaihyo]

In the end, we are each a minority of one. While I support a few of the ideas of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, I find their devotion to group-think, group identity and equality of outcomes worrying.

I am 00.0000000003% of the United States population and I am an individual.

Comments

[eldritchhobbit]

Well said, indeed!

[xiphias]

The advantage of group identity is that, as a group, we're at least 3 million times more effective than you are.

An individual is only as powerful as an individual -- and is therefore at the mercy of any other individual more powerful. The purpose of society is to get rid of that problem.

[akaihyo]

Working with/as a group is fine, I support that. Subsuming yourself in a group and following it without question, that I am not cool with.

Groups are composed of individuals, the 1%, the 99%, the US, all composed of individuals. But when we start privileging group identity over individual people, I get worried as that is usually when oppression starts.

[fatcook]

Very well said!
Everyone keeps comparing Occupy(inset name) with the Arab Spring and they are nothing alike. The Spring was about change, growth and hope. Occupy has no clue of what is going on, other than wanting to belong to something.

[xiphias]

But fetishization of individualism is one of the things that is hurting us. The idea that everybody rises or falls on his or her own merits is the lever that the folks at the top are using to manipulate everyone else, to prevent them from being able to challenge the most powerful folks.

[cmccurry]

Well said and thank you. You are a far more tactful individual than I am.

[kabzon]

I am 00.0000000002% of the Russia population and I am an individual. :-)))