I have to expand on something Devilsmile brought up. I believe the intention of moving society away from tribalism and encouraging individualism has its philosophical roots in egalitarianism. The idea is that moving toward individualism would result in the erosion of racial tribalism by encouraging people to view each other in terms of individual worth as opposed to the in-group/out-group dynamic. The problem is simultaneously there are also been a push for other non-dominate groups to primarily identify themselves through ethnic, religious and racial identities as a means of encouraging greater group cohesion and self confidence. In the long run the contradictory approaches to group dynamics nullify each other but that's my opinion.
fuck, this turned out to be a long post... read it or don't. I already posted it, won't delete it
Well of course some feel better in a group, if not everyone. Being around people who understand where you're coming from without judging your short comings because of the understanding of your uniqueness makes you feel much better in general, opposed to being an individual in a group of totally differend people who fail to see where you're coming from and what you're about, and usually that leads to the isolation of that individual in the group.
Stuff like that happens all the time in schools for example, and also in work.
But I admit that I can't hang out with people that can't be open minded for example. Being open minded doesn't mean that you have to believe and act the same way how others do, it means you understand that some people have differend background and therefor have differend personality and preferences. And being open minded also means you don't take everything for granted. I demand certain self critique.
I don't think erosion of tribalism or culture would ever occur just because of individual freedom because those things have always changed their form, and that's it.
Lets say that aliens would come to live among us. The only thing I would demand from the aliens is to realize that they are in a completely differend world and to not take their way of life for granted. They can absolutely value their way of life but don't build any "aliens only" blocks next to mine, that's completely against common sense. Why do you want to create conflict out of sheer differend point of views, that's stupid!
Philosophical constructs and political awareness is only a positive thing, but there needs to be (no homo) compassion. Just being open minded. That goes for everyone. How crazy is it to bring complete loonatics from arab and african nations under full support of a foreign government, I'm not for that at all, I'm strongly against it.
Ok, I don't think that everything should change. But I'm all about positive change, everything changes, right? Like the universe. The only permanent thing is change, but my god, I don't think building a pink pissing boy in the middle of market place should be the flag ship of culture.