Individualism -vs- Collectivism

Individualism	Similarities	Collectivism
Rule of law	Rule of Law –vs- Adherence to collective norms	Economic equality
Individual rights and freedoms	Private-vs- Public Property	Co-operation
Private Property	Collective-vs-self-Interest	Public Property
Economic Freedom	Competition-vs-co-operation	Collective Interest
Self-interest		Collective Responsibility
Competition		Adherence to collective norms

Collectivist Or Individualist

Character Trait

One of Tim O’Brian’s Characters traits I found was weakness (the ability to give in). In the story he was drafted to fight in a war he did not believe in. It seemed to me he had already decided he was going to go before he actually knew he was going to give in and go. I made this assumption by the facts that he worked in a meat processing and with his specific duty he was already prepping himself for being in the war. He described the smell he couldn’t wash off this body and he said he took a blood shower every day. Those are both things he would experience in fighting a war, even though he didn’t particularly enjoy these things he dealt with them. The main character again portrayed the fact that he was weak by running away from his problems instead of facing them. He could of been strong and got support from his family and dealt with the problem but he took the cowardly way out he ran way and tried dealing with it himself. Another sign of weakness he showed was when he was in the boat and he broke down. He knew what his decision was and he knew himself it was the cowardly way out but he went through it anyways. HE was weak in the fact that he showed he made the wrong decision by crying and the biggest example of weakness was the fact he should have went to Canada it was what he believed was right but he listen to the “man” instead. He was a coward...he was weak.

He did have his moments of strength though he was strong enough to leave his family to find himself and to find his decision. He was also strong enough to survive the war and to come back to fulfill his dreams and expectations of himself. Everybody has times of strength and everybody had times of weakness, but some people are stronger and weaker than others, Tim was weaker.