Individualism Vs. Collectivism

“Methodological individualism correctly practiced means that generalizations are to be considered, while each and every individual is treated on his merit.”—ILANA Mercer, “The Jewish State Is Genocidal, But Is Israeli Society Sick, Too?,” May 21, 2024
“Methodological individualism does not mandate that aggregate group traits be denied. Rather, methodological individualism correctly practiced means that generalizations are to be considered, while each and every individual is treated on his merit, and not conflated with the group.”—ILANA Mercer, “The Jewish State Is Genocidal, But Is Israeli Society Sick, Too?,” May 21, 2024
GAZA: Without a doubt, The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is the voice of the Jewish-Israeli commonwealth.”—ILANA Mercer, “The Jewish State Is Genocidal, But Is Israeli Society Sick, Too?,” May 21, 2024
“As the West careens toward the Covid-centered anthill society, nobody identifies and defends the individual’s dominion over his body and his right to reject the Pharma-State’s Hemlock prescription for that body.”—ILANA MERCER, “Self-Ownership And The Right To Reject The Pharma-State’s Hemlock,” Oct 28, 2021.
“Judging a policy by its positive outcomes for the collective, rather than by whether it violates individual rights is utilitarianism. It is the rule among politicians and pundits. The Benthamite utilitarian calculus is thus rightly associated with a collectivist, central-planner’s impetus.”—ILANA MERCER, “Do Vaccine Resisters Risk Being Waco’d?” March 8, 2021.
“America’s founders held a Blackstonian view of the law as a bulwark against government abuses. Their take has since been supplanted by the notion of the law as an implement of government, to be utilized by all-knowing rulers for the ‘greater good.’”—ILANA MERCER, “Do Vaccine Resisters Risk Being Waco’d?” March 8, 2021.
“Support for Trump is associated with a less propagandized population.”—ILANA MERCER, “Simplest Source of Voter Fraud Is Baked Into the System,” November 19, 2020.
On Collectivism: “You can’t blame a collective for harm done to you, unless each individual within that collective has harmed you.”—ILANA MERCER, “Taking A Knee Is Akin To Taking A Pee,” September 28, 2017.
“Feminism is a form of collectivism. The solipsistic sorority known as feminism was alien to Mrs. Thatcher, who was a methodological individualist, if ever there was one. The ‘Iron Lady’ would have had nothing but contempt for the mediocrities claiming her achievements for their communal sisterhood.”—ILANA (April 12, 2013)
“Most people would define treason as a betrayal of one’s country or sovereign. In my book, the book of natural law, treason is properly defined as a betrayal of one’s countrymen—and, in particular, the betrayal of the individual’s right to life, liberty and property. (To your question, yes, this renders almost all politicians traitors by definition.)”—ILANA (January 18, 2013)
“Ayn Rand scorned those rich whose ill-gotten gains were derived by using the coercive power of the state—Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, to mention a few. In Rand’s book, these men had not earned an honest crust. Rand’s celebrated ‘rich’ were the men and women who bring to market the products and services without which life would be miserable, and for which MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is a walking ad. The clothes she is kitted-out in, her coif; the devices she uses to communicate and transmit her sub-intelligent message, the food she buys cheaply to sustain her efforts—these are all produced, facilitated or brought to market by the invisible hand she labors to lop-off.”—ILANA (August 17, 2012)
“Ayn Rand was no fan of ‘public service,’ unless it was in the service of reversing the damage done to the voluntary economy by legislators. The Republicans’ repeal-and-replace statism doesn’t cut it.”—ILANA (August 17, 2012)
“‘You didn’t build That’ will be Obama’s political epitaph: With these remarks, Obama has come out of the closet as a most odious collectivist, who believes religiously that government predation is a condition for production. Or, put simply, that the parasite created the host. With his near-religious repetition of the ‘you didn’t build that’ dogma, the president of the United States demonstrated his irrational faith in the statist principle of compulsory cooperation.”—ILANA (July 27, 2012)
“McCain’s national greatness ‘conservatism’ sees the individual as a cog in the service of the collective. Contra McMussolini, the American Founders placed the individual before the collective, giving pride of place to individual liberties before duties.”—ILANA (September 12, 2008)
“What greater contrast can there be between the Olympian, who powers himself to the pinnacle, and the politician, who drapes himself in the noble toga of idealism, in the famous words of Aldous Huxley, so as to conceal his will to power.”—ILANA (August 20, 2004)
“Societies are only as good as the individuals of whom they are comprised, individuals only as good as their actions”—ILANA (June 22, 2007)
“Generalizations, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives based on probabilities and generalities.”—ILANA (May 27, 2006)
“To consider nationhood a collectivist concept is to confuse authentic individualism with a caricature thereof. The real individualist knows that man is a social being by nature. He knows that to belong to a variety of social systems is not necessarily to be bound by—or subjugated to—them. Mostly, the real individualist knows who he is and whence he came.”—ILANA (April 7, 2006)
Methodological individualism, ultimately, doesn’t mean denying aggregate group differences, but, rather, treating each and every individual on his merit.”—ILANA MERCER, “IQ & Aggregate Groups Differences,” November 6, 2007.

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