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Originally Posted by SailinAway View Post
So the first lesson I hope we will learn from this crisis is that the common good IS also the individual good.
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Originally Posted by Chris M
You'd have fit right into 1940 Germany with that sentiment.
Conversely, America was founded on the idea of the supremacy of the individual. Granted, we've deviated wildly from that founding premise as time has marched on.
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Chris, my statement was an expression of concern for our fellow human beings. Here's an example. In the US we have a very large homeless population, both on the streets and in shelters. Why should we care about them? Aside from the obvious humanitarian reasons, it's because we are all socially connected one way or another. If we don't provide health care for homeless people and they become infected, eventually their illness will spread to us. Why should you care about COVID-19 in other countries? Because if you don't, eventually it will spread to your country. When the world is healthy, your chances of being healthy are higher.
Does that sound like naziism to you? In fact it's the opposite of naziism.
Getting to your second point, about America being founded on the supremacy of the individual, I don't think that history supports that. America was founded on the idea of a supreme race, the idea that one race of people could rob the land and resources of another race (referring now to all of the Americas), use genocide to finish them off, and enslave millions of people. All justified by racial superiority. That is frighteningly close to the Nazi claim of racial superiority justifying theft and genocide.
However, even if the United States were founded on this or that idea, that does not prevent us from evolving into a better society now. An understanding of history is a good place to start. When I was in school we learned about the Indians and Thanksgiving. Our teachers never mentioned what happened to all the Indians. That doesn't prevent us from learning about that today, just as you could learn what naziism actually is.