The Exigent Duality
There are no "collectives"! - 07:54 CST, 11/17/15 (Sniper)
There are only individuals-- there is no such thing as a "collective"!

I don't like having to start a blog post by "shouting", but this confusion probably causes more harm than any other thinking error on the planet! A couple of great examples are here and here.

The article you can read by visiting the first link talks illustrates the outright Fascism of many college students today. The article discusses the first amendment implications in detail, so instead of focusing on that, I will point out the problem with the first two "demands", by using an example.

Let's say your neighbor's great, great grandfather stole a horse from your great, great grandfather, several decades ago. In retribution, you walk over to your neighbor's lawn as he's watering his rose bushes, and you sock him in the face. Who initiated force-- you, or your neighbor?

Obviously, it was you; there is no rational or logical way one can justify that your neighbor is responsible for the actions of someone else, seventy-odd years ago. It just doesn't stand to reason. But what if you somehow loop your neighbor and his ancestors into a pseudo-arbitrary "collective"-- in this case, they are a "clan" as they are part of the same family? Suddenly, that justification gives you carte blanch to start beating up anyone in their entire family tree!

Another example would be, let's say a police officer shoots and kills your brother. You then take that as an excuse to go on a cop-killing rampage, because you are somehow morally entitled to fight against "the police". That too is collectivistic thinking, and it too is illogical and damaging.

"Collectives" are just individuals. Period. There is no magical aura, no voodoo "moral authority", and no "shared responsibility" involved-- only individuals, who live and die by their own decisions.

So to the article: somehow "demanding" that the president of some random school apologize for "our institutional legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, blah de blah", is patently absurd, in the same way that punching your innocent neighbor in the face while he's watering his rose bushes is absurd. Not only that, but whomever wrote these "demands" claims that is is "our" white supremacy, and "our" racism, and so on-- without identifying to whom they are specifically even referring! Again, it's collectivistic nonsense-- the same as the cop-killing rampage above.

The second article, linked above, is very similar. As in the example of the above-discussed college campus, here a handful of completely off-their-rocker terrorists are using collectivistic thinking as an excuse to try to get their way. In this case, the terrorists are blowing up random people-- many of whom might be Muslims themselves, for all the terrorists know! And the subsequent, collectivistic, xenophobic reaction? Well, John Xenakis himself says it best: "Many people can't tell the difference between an Arab and a Muslim anyway."