This is fucked up. I keep finding words that have different meaning in the US than in the rest of the world (libertarianism and collectivism for example). This is making it realy hard to communicate with americans about politics.
Also, collectivism IS for the weak and there's nothing wrong with this. It is a way for the weak to team up and face common threats together. If a society disregards the weak it suffers from high crime rates.
As I said before, you can't demonise either, Both mechanisms have advantages and disadvantages. I'm sure you have communist east europe as an example, but marinaleda (in Andalusia) on the contrary is trhiving.
It is a matter of finding in which cases it is useful to think individualistically and when to think collectively.
Saying this, I'm not implying that finding that perfect balance is an easy task.