Collective Individualism

 

A thing that frustrates me about political and philosophical frameworks that contrast "individualism" with "collectivism" is that disability liberation isn't compatible with what people mean by either. 

 

I actually do believe that the rights of the individual are more important than the good of the collective. I am absolutely a diehard liberal individualist. 

 

The thing is that I believe that should apply to EVERY individual, equally.

And in practice, valuing the rights of every individual equally can look a lot like collectivism, but with a very different philosophical basis. As usual, disabled people bring out the underlying philosophical differences. 

 

When people frame, for example, a conflict between more services for poor people vs. higher taxes for rich people as a matter of "collective vs. individual," they're framing the rich person who doesn't want to pay taxes as "the individual." But if you believe that every individual matters equally, then the issue is the individual poor person's right to access the resources xe needs for self-actualization. 

 

A disabled person's right to expensive medical care needed to stay alive should outweigh the collective, actually. A disabled person's right to bodily autonomy should outweigh society's discomfort with xyr choices. A disabled student's right to an equal education should outweigh abled students' "having less" because they have to share resources with a disabled classmate. 

 

Not universal healthcare as in "Mandatory involuntary drugging and forced diets and care rationing because the good of society outweighs the individual," but universal healthcare as in "Every individual disabled person has the right to access care on xyr own terms."