On balance, Collectivism is preferable to Individualism

Contention 1: Humans are selfish. I shall first prove how humans are selfish and wouldn't really be able to function in a collective society, but would rather only be able to fit into an individualistic society. Sigmund Freud has stated that humans are selfishly aggressive. Let me give you an example. Say you're walking down the street and you see a homeless man begging for change. You give the man change. You feel good knowing that now he has money to get some food into his stomach, but Freud has agrued that this was only done, because you want to save the genes of the human race and you want it to continue. Also that you now get a feel good feeling and if you didn't you would feel guilty and ashamed. You could have easily done it just so you can feel good about yourself. Here he is quoted."I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think."Thomas Hobbes has also shown that humanity, by nature, is rotten. That we will rape and pillage everything unless we have a threat. This of course being laws and punishment. Otherwise we would end up in chaos and anarchy. (http://www.iep.utm.edu...) I added the raping and pillaging parts as I was, once again, speaking about the Human Nature. http://oregonstate.edu...) (Hobbes has stated that human nature is poor, nasty, brutish, and short. This is how we argued that we have governments via the Social Contract Theory. For an example I would give up my right to kill Pro and Pro would, in turn, give up his right to kill me. If he were to denies it and kill me and say, "Meh, one less Ginger," the government would punish him. See we don't violate the law, because of either religion or pure fear out of the government taking away our rights or the death penalty. (http://philosophypages.com...) “one, the postulate of human greed by which each man insists upon his own private use of common property; the other, the postulate of natural reason, by which each man strives to avoid violent death” (De Cive, Epistle Dedicatory).We can see here above that simply we go to avoid death and we all know that one of the leading fears is death. Why do we fear death? What will happen to our families when we die? How will I be remembered? Could I have done better? What's next? Am I going to heaven or hell? These are all questions that we ponder when it comes to the afterlife. We simply fear the unknown. Contention 2: Individualism and the hard work. There is no greater arguer of individualism than Alexis de Tocqueville who defines Individualism as fallows (yes I still accept Pro's definition, but this is part of my argument): “a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself." (Translation by Lawrence, George (1969). Perennial Classics. Quotations are from Volume II, Part 2, Chapter 2-4. Page 506) He later argues in his novel that America (in the 1800s) is great for it's individualism as we are willing to risk all of our personal fortunes and earning to take a chance in buisness or the great wilderness of the American fronteer. Unlike Europe at the time where people only past down land to the oldest in the family and that was it, in the US people took chances and defied society's discouragement to take chances to better the economy and better the world as expected by you in a democratic society. “As social equality spreads there are more and more people who, though neither rich nor powerful enough to have much hold over others, have gained and kept enough wealth and enough understanding to look after their own needs. Such folk owe no man anything and hardly expect anything from anybody. They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine their whole destiny is in their own hands” (Same source as above page 508). Tocqueville argues that this is necessary to be individualistic in order to maintain an independence and not being able to have to expect society to have to support you Ralph Waldo Emmerson agrees with this theory in his essay Self-Reliance, where he argues that it is the upmost importance that one must live by their own instint, because it is important that one stays independent. He also goes on to argue that one growth is dettermined by their independence from society and that one's own abilities to choose for one's self and make your own decissions make it important.