are you an individualist or a universalist?

Question

i dont know if these are the right terms for wat i mean, but hopefully u understand wat im getting at. explain to me which is ur approach to life and y u value it. wat does this approach do for u? i figure there is prob a spectrum reguarding this, but in general, which do u lean more toward. when i say individualist it doesnt mean not caring about the concerns of others btw. this is a question reguarding sense of IDENTITY

if ur in this section i shud think that ud want to answer serioiusly

tho scooby snack cookies are good

Answer 1

I'm a multilateralist

Answer 2

I mostly agree with Tocca. Why can't we be both? I'm an individualist that exists within universalist principles. This is the idea behind American freedom. You are free to be whatever/whoever you want to be (individualism), but within "universal" limits. In this case, the "universal" limits (of course not literally universal) would be the law. You have freedom of speech. But not slander. You have freedom of expression. But not public nudity. Etc. I believe this idea is why the founding fathers based our country off of Christian principles, because they strongly believed those principles were the most "universal" of all, yet they were also very much individualists that refused to conform to the rest of the world's ideas on government.

Answer 3

Your question made me think.

I believe, to be a universalist, one has to be an individualist. If we don't know what we want, how can we pursue it. It's healthy to lay the foundation...the source..i.e us, for everything else. And to know what we want, we have to evaluate ourselves.....who we are, what we like etc. I know of several people though, who stop at being individualists (if I am getting your meaning right). They are more than content thinking bout just their life....and their family, and that's it for them. But many others....go far ahead. They don't stop at 'me'. I have humanitarian goals, even if it comes at the expense of my comfort. Ofcourse, having these goals, does give me satisfaction, so it isn't a "sacrifice". (And, ofcourse, if we aren't happy, how can we be our best at we do?) But I like to have a larger view of humanity, my place and my contribution as I relate to the world...

Answer 4

When I'm eating my Scooby Cookies I'm very individualist..
And I love to all the Universe.
We can have our own individuality and we can care for others too , and you have to care and love yourself too always taking the right decisions to be a better person .

Answer 5

Neither. My approach to life and the way I perceive things has been & is custom taylored to me! What it does for me is places me in the position of absolute freedom. No boundaries, no limits.

Answer 6

I'm an individualist

Answer 7

The two words in essence seem to suggest there is some power on my part that I could take some exclusive difference in one concept from the other. The question, posing the two concepts as if they were dualistically opposed to one an other is misleading in my Judgment. Science does not advance disregarding similarity or universality of quality and function of things, nor is it a discipline if science ignores the particularity and peculiarities of individual things and people. Even human essence viewed from its universality has independent stages of mental development for each human based only on difference of birth date for each human, i.e. the human being does not become its own self at birth. e.g.:
Stage One Oral-Sensory: from birth to one, trust vs. mistrust, feeding;
Stage Two Muscular-Anal: 1-3 years, autonomy vs.doubt, toilet training;
Stage Three Locomotor: 3-6 years, initiative vs.inadequacy, independence;
Stage Four Latency: 6-12 years, industry vs.inferiority, school;
Stage Five Adolescence: 12-18 years, identity vs.confusion, peer relationships;
Stage Six Young Adulthood: 18-40 years, intimacy vs.isolation, love relationships;
Stage Seven Middle Adulthood: 40-65 years, generativity vs.stagnation, parenting;
Stage Eight Maturity: 65 years until death, integrity vs.despair, acceptance of one's life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erick_Erickson

Stages of Cognitive Development. Piaget identified four stages in cognitive development:

Sensorimotor stage (Infancy). In this period (which has 6 stages), intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited (but developing) because its based on physical interactions / experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about 7 months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbollic (language) abilities are developed at the end of this stage.

Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood). In this period (which has two substages), intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a nonlogical, nonreversable manner. Egocentric thinking predominates

Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence). In this stage (characterized by 7 types of conservation: number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood). In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.

http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html


The Judgment is negative, the Will is positive.

"(3) Evil and Forgiveness
Φ 660. While in this way the opposition, into which conscience passes when it acts, finds expression in its inner life, the opposition is at the same time disparity on its outer side, in the sphere of existence — the lack of correspondence of its particular individuality with reference to another individual. Its special peculiarity consists in the fact that the two elements constituting its consciousness — viz. the self and the inherent nature (Ansich) — are unequal in value and significance within it; an inequality in which they are so determined that certainty of self is the essential fact as against the inherent nature, or the universal, which is taken to be merely a moment. Over against this internal determination there thus stands the element of existence, the universal consciousness; for this latter it is rather universality, duty, that is the essential fact, while individuality, which exists for itself and is opposed to the universal, has merely the value of a superseded moment. The first consciousness is held to be Evil by the consciousness which thus stands by the fact of duty, because of the lack of correspondence of its internal subjective life with the universal; and since at the same time the first consciousness declares its act to be congruency with itself, to be duty and conscientiousness it is held by that universal consciousness to be Hypocrisy."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc2cc.htm

Answer 8

I believe that nothing matters except for experiences...and human interaction... I don't know what you would label me... an athiest?

Answer 9

i hate to be selfish, but in this rough world, i believe that one should take care his own a-ss first to survive.