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KailaAlstonSecondEssay 2 - 23 May 2022 - Main.EbenMoglen
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< | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | The Effect of Western Individualism on the US Response to COVID-19 | | | Individualism vs Collectivism | |
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< | In social psychology countries or cultures are typically sorted into two categories: collectivist and individualistic. A collectivist culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants, and demands of the society or group as opposed to those of the individual. Countries with collectivist cultures include South Korea, Mexico, and Japan. Whereas an individualistic culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants and demands of the individual over those of the group. Countries with these views include the United States, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Ultimately these cultural differences affected the way each country responded, and continues to respond to, the pandemic as well as how the citizens of each country responded to COVID protocols. | >
> | In social psychology countries or cultures are typically sorted into two categories: collectivist and individualistic.
I don't understand "typically." Perhaps some citation to this literature?
A collectivist culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants, and demands of the society or group as opposed to those of the individual. Countries with collectivist cultures include South Korea, Mexico, and Japan. Whereas an individualistic culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants and demands of the individual over those of the group. Countries with these views include the United States, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Ultimately these cultural differences affected the way each country responded, and continues to respond to, the pandemic as well as how the citizens of each country responded to COVID protocols. | | |
Mask Mandates | | | US action and response to COVID-19 never had a chance of being adequate due to the way our culture functions. Extreme individualism has ravaged our society in a way that has and will likely continue to cause irreparable damage. Until the average American can value the people around them in a way that’s meaningful we stand no chance of overcoming COVID-19. | |
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The best route to improvement, I think, is to put the next draft in touch with the actual social science backing up what are here just assertions. From an editorial point of view there are holes at both ends of the bag.
It's not persuasive social science to make binary classifications to explain the behavior of bloc units of tens or hundreds of millions of individual people. Any social taxonomy that makes the United Arab Emirates a "collectivist" rather than "individualist" society has some basic explaining to do. Any elision of regional and local differences in the continent-spanning 320 million people of the US is likely to miss important insights.
At the other end of the bag, a lawyer's theory of social action is purposive. The goal is to make something happen using words. An analysis that divides all human social life into teams A and B, and the relevant social traits into mutually exclusive A-ones and B-ones is of no use to lawyers. So what, on a nuanced and local level of analysis, can words do to change behaviors in desired directions thought by the lawyer to be good for society?
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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KailaAlstonSecondEssay 1 - 27 Apr 2022 - Main.KailaAlston
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
The Effect of Western Individualism on the US Response to COVID-19
-- By KailaAlston - 27 Apr 2022
Individualism vs Collectivism
In social psychology countries or cultures are typically sorted into two categories: collectivist and individualistic. A collectivist culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants, and demands of the society or group as opposed to those of the individual. Countries with collectivist cultures include South Korea, Mexico, and Japan. Whereas an individualistic culture is one that generally prioritizes the needs, wants and demands of the individual over those of the group. Countries with these views include the United States, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Ultimately these cultural differences affected the way each country responded, and continues to respond to, the pandemic as well as how the citizens of each country responded to COVID protocols.
Mask Mandates
Mandated masking was received extremely differently in collectivist societies and individualistic societies. In individualistic societies, particularly in the United States, the response could almost be considered feral. Between the massive disparities in information between the states and the claims of freedom and liberty infringement from the average citizen, Americans truly never stood a chance of ever beating this deadly virus. While the initial disdain for masking could be explained by a lack of evidence that it worked in preventing the spread of COVID-19, the continued and worsening disregard for mask mandates doesn’t track with this theory. As the pandemic progressed our knowledge of the virus also progressed. It has been proven time and time again that masking is most effective when every party participates. However, this has been long disregarded by a decent portion of the population. The general rhetoric of the individualistic society is that masks cannot be forced on individuals and to wear one if you want but ‘don't impose your beliefs on others.’ The desire for individual freedom far outweighs the safety of others and the general public in the individualistic. COVID-19 has shown that the average American values their own sense of personal freedom more than the lives of their neighbors.
On the other side of the spectrum collectivist societies had a much less explosive response to mask mandates. In countries like South Korea and Japan it was already custom to wear a mask out in public if you were feeling ill or slightly under the weather in order to protect the people around you. This sense of caring for one another and not putting others in harm's way unnecessarily was already embedded into their culture. This type of general regard for others is systemic; it isn't something that can be taught. The value of the whole as opposed to just a piece in collectivist societies ultimately helped slow the transmission of COVID-19 in these countries as it spread like wildfire across the world.
Vaccines
Given the frustration and uproar in response to masking mandates in the individualistic society, you would think there would be a better response to a potential permanent solution to the pandemic. This unfortunately was not the case. When it comes to vaccines, specifically in the US, it is an uphill battle. The same people claiming a piece of cloth is an intrusion on their personal freedoms and liberties are the same people claiming that a vaccine to shield against COVID-19 is also an invasion on their personal freedoms. Individualism and the importance of personal freedoms in the United States has become so strong and overbearing that common sense has escaped a significant portion of the population. Those who resist masking and vaccines do so because they believe that they will not die from the virus. There is no thought or care for those that may have pre-existing conditions or are immunocompromised. The individual raised in an individualistic society is not accustomed to worrying about anyone but themselves. Until they themselves are at risk they will not care for the actions of the collective.
Similar to masking the collectivist response to vaccines were much different than that of the individualistic society. There is an understanding that in order for this virus to go away, or at the very least become much less severe, there must be collective action as with any previous disease or virus. There is an understanding of the necessity of herd immunity to protect those who are unable to be vaccinated. As I stated before there is an intrinsic valuation of others in these societies that just does not exist in individualistic societies, at least not in the United States. That is why the vaccination rates are exponentially higher in the majority of these countries. Japan, the UAE, and China are all collectivist societies with over 80% of their citizens fully vaccinated. Whereas the US is sitting at 66% of their population being fully vaccinated.
Final Remarks
US action and response to COVID-19 never had a chance of being adequate due to the way our culture functions. Extreme individualism has ravaged our society in a way that has and will likely continue to cause irreparable damage. Until the average American can value the people around them in a way that’s meaningful we stand no chance of overcoming COVID-19.
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