To keep it simple, humans are a social species. Perhaps the most social in existence, given we developed language, sciences, and civilization...all of these have a base assumption of social relations.

It's a false dichotomy to pretend that the struggle is between the individual vs collective. Because the average individual is always part of society, and society functions for the sake of its members. The two developed interrelated, from before humans were biologically humans.

Ignoring this fact and portraying it like you need to choose one is wrong. This is the problem of idealism. Idealism just picks and chooses some idea because it sounds good at the time eg. "individualism" but refuses to acknowledge the historical context and dynamics.

A dialectical view would reveal that people tending towards individualism are reacting to the current dynamic which only appears like individualism vs collectivism. But stepping back and looking at this dynamic shows it's not really an eternal duel between dualities. They're not even dualities.

That's why we can predict a new stage in history, not just another move in a duel. Socialism is not collectivism getting its turn after individualism has its day. It's breaking past this false duality when people realize individualism in a vacuum doesn't work.