Individualism
As always, the opinions I express in these articles solely reflect my opinion on this matter.
System responsibility vs individualism
Where this system is concerned, I confess that I am a staunch individualist. I mislike having my opinions and feelings conflated with those of my colleagues, simply because we are different people.If someone in a plural system performs an action considered 'immoral' by the standards of the society in which the system lives, even if the system at large is held responsible by those who do not know of their plural status, I believe that only the individual who actually committed the deed should be held responsible by people within the system, unless fellow system members knowingly approved of the behaviour through tacit or explicit defences. Where people outside the system (who know the group's plural status, I might add) are concerned, I imagine that opinions would vary largely, and cannot say whether an individual-centred or system-centred response is the 'right' one.
Acts which cannot be labelled objectively as moral or immoral should not, in general, be treated as system concerns, especially when only one or two specific individuals are saying things with which others outside the system vehemently disagree. I can quite mislike the way someone in another system handled a situation without finding the rest of the system necessarily complicit. Individual opinions are subjective by their very nature, and cannot be attributed to others unless others have explicitly stated their approval. For example, should I have a particular set of beliefs, they are mine, and cannot be applied to others, and shouldn't be assumed to belong to others. Would one do that with non-plural housemates, or family members, unless they clearly indicated that they agreed? I imagine that one would not.