Here's my problem, largely, with the answers given, although I very much agree with a lot of the things this person is saying.
Society and individuals are different things. Societal actions and behaviors are different from indavidual actions and behaviors. We should judge indavidual actions as individuals, and societal actions as a society. We should not judge indavidual actions as a society, or societal actions as an indavidual. The former makes you oppressive and constricting. The latter makes you a dictator.
Take a racist statement given by an individual white person vs an indavidual black person, who are of relatively similar social power. The words of each indavidual have the same capacity to effect the opinions and thoughts of others as individuals, and when looking at their words as individuals, we should judge them equally harshly. Both are doing the same harm to society.
However, as a society, there are a lot more white people in power (and just in general), capable of doing more harm using racist statements. As a society, it's important to focus on fixing the issues that are caused by those things, as well as establishing the end of trends that hurt smaller groups. This means we find a trend, something everyone does, that hurts a minority group, we should seek to end that trend as a society, but judge anyone who contributes to that trend as an individual and punish them and regard them as equally wrong for the way they have acted.
To not do this is to create double standards, to tear people apart, and to continue putting divides and harsh rifts into society. The white person who is judged for racism, but then feels the same shame and hurt when they hear racism directed to themselves WILL become resentful and WILL become hateful. As a society, it's important to note that when we allow resent and hate to build in society, it isn't going to harm the majority, and end the trends that cause those things. The person trying to pay their heating bill and being nonetheless called privileged will have zero support for the people who found a crippled person and decided to go ahead and shoot them in the knees regardless for things they had no control over. "Your life should be worse" is a hell of a thing to tell people, and that's exactly what this article is telling those people.
This inability to separate the two spheres of human behavior is, I think, the number one thing plaguing social science right now. When we finally start actually doing that, I think we will see a lot of very fast social improvement.
- We should not judge indavidual (sic) actions as a society, or societal actions as an indavidual (sic).
Says who? This seems completely arbitrary. What aim is furthered by restricting society from judging the individual, or vice versa? I don't think we have a common ground because I'm not sure at all what point you're trying to make. What do you mean by society? Every individual? Or some sort of subset? How small can that subset get before it's not "society" anymore? And what does judge mean? Why can't a group of people "judge" an individual? Do you mean make bad judgments, incomplete judgments, unfair judgments?
I'm not trying to give you trouble over semantics. I just don't understand your contention. That social scientists can't differentiate between individual and collective behavior?
- What do you mean by society? Every individual?
The society is the overall trends and behaviors of any group. An indavidual is a single person and their actions, who may belong to a sub-group of society.
- How small can that subset get before it's not "society" anymore?
If you judge a person, as an indavidual, by any measure but the status of that single indavidual, you've crossed the line. If your actions of judging some group results in you judging individuals not as individuals than you've crossed the line. You do this when you attempt to judge two people differently even if their individual actions had the same level of impact.
- And what does judge mean?
Any action or consideration of a person. It can mean a whole range of things. Essentially, any attempt to put pressure on a person to change their behavior or tendencies.
- Why can't a group of people "judge" an individual?
A group of people can judge an individual for their individual actions. However, society as a whole shouldn't begin to put pressure on select individuals for problems that only arise due to the behavior of the trends of a large group of people acting that way. You can do things like put pressure on "people who do X" because you are still judging people based on their actions, and applying that to all of society. However, judging only people who are X and do X is wrong.
There are societal trends that only arise when you look at society at the large scale, but don't necessarily appear on the individual scale. These trends should be prevented by actions that effect everyone in society, rather than targeting specific people.