America’s Obsession with Self-Help

Re:America’s Obsession with Self-Help by silverpepsi on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @08:13PM (#27755966)

"By Western standards" as in you can point to other countries that are clearly more individualistic or do you mean by the measure of Western philosophies of the concept of individualism??

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:America’s Obsession with Self-Help by timoth3y on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @09:28PM (#27756366)

I don't think there is a philosophical agreement on what constitutes "individualism", so I won't try to speak to that.

However, for the purpose of this discussion, we are talking about a society's relative tolerance of individuals choosing to live their life the way they wish and a relatively weak emphasis on social conformity.

I'm sure someone has done proper quantitative research on this, but offhand, I think the Netherlands would score pretty high.

P.S. I used "Western standards" to differentiate from developed Asian nations like Japan, Korea, and Singapore which are more conformist.

[ Parent | on HN ]