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Collectivism in Action

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358402,00.html
Actress Sharon Stone, known for her off-the-wall comments, is at it again — this time saying the devastating earthquake in China might have been "karma" for the Communist nation's treatment of Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

When the earthquake hit, Stone wondered if it was a case of what goes around, comes around.

"Then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice, that the bad things happen to you?" said the 50-year-old star.

 This is an example of collectivism in action. Instead of judging the individual actions of individual people according to a moral code, Sharon Stone lumps all Chinese together, paints them all with one brush. Thus, the victims of the earthquake, most of whom are unlikely to have ever raised a finger against the Tibetans, become the targets of Stone's scorn.

You'd think that since she changed her mind in the end, that she is not a collectivist after all. But you'd be wrong - she changed her mind because a Tibetan group wanted to help the Chinese victims. So she damns all Chinese, and does exactly whatever some random group of Tibetans wants. (I am not criticizing this Tibetan group for wanting to help. That's their business. The issue is Stone's immediate, unreasoning following of their example, and her unprincipled treatment of the whole affair.

This is morality by popularity, this is right and wrong by majority, this is precisely the sort of collectivist, socialist non-thinking that stands opposed to Western civilization.

Let's hope that Sharon Stone is an exception.

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