Source Analysis: Collectivism vs. Individualism

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Source one demonstrates and embraces the perspective of a collectivist. The speaker of the source, Chief Seattle, a prominent leader of the Native American tribes, represents his collective point of view of how each and every one of us are connected illustrating the “web of life”. His statement indicates his primary focus of how humans are creatures that needs to be dependent on others in order to survive. This view is placed on the left side on the political spectrum with the assumptions that all people are created equal where they value the goals of the group and the common good over the individual goals and rights. The way he stated that, “whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves”, strongly expressed a collective perspective and that the actions of an individual will not only affect himself/herself, but others as well. An example would be global warming, it will not only affect the countries that create pollutions, but everyone else is also involved and affected in this issue. People may call it the ‘butterfly effect’, where it is a scientific theory that describes how one s...

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