Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the worth or central role of the individual.Ellen Meiksins Wood. Mind and Politics: An Approach to the Meaning of Liberal and Socialist Individualism. University of California Press. 1972. . p. 6 Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should take precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference with one's interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism focuses on the individual and thus starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation".L. Susan Brown. The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism, and Anarchism. Black Rose Books Ltd. 1993
Individualism represents one type of sociocultural perspective and is often defined in contrast to other perspectives, such as communitarianism, collectivism, and corporatism.
Individualism is also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles, which tend toward self-creation and experimentation rather than tradition or popular opinions and behaviors, and it is also associated with humanist philosophical positions and ethics."The leading intellectual trait of the era was the recovery, to a certain degree, of the secular and humane philosophy of Greece and Rome. Another humanist trend which cannot be ignored was the rebirth of individualism, which, developed by Greece and Rome to a remarkable degree, had been suppressed by the rise of a caste system in the later Roman Empire, by the Church and by feudalism in the Middle Ages."The history guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History""Anthropocentricity and individualism...Humanism and Italian art were similar in giving paramount attention to human experience, both in its everyday immediacy and in its positive or negative extremes...The human-centredness of Renaissance art, moreover, was not just a generalized endorsement of earthly experience. Like the humanists, Italian artists stressed the autonomy and dignity of the individual.""Humanism" on Encyclopædia Britannica "Individualism" has also been used as a term denoting "The quality of being an individual; individuality", related to possessing "An individual characteristic; a quirk".
Etymology In the English language, the word individualism was first introduced as a pejorative by utopian socialists such as the Owenites in the late 1830s, although it is unclear whether they were influenced by Saint-Simonianism or developed the term independently. A more positive use of the term in Britain emerged in the writings of James Elishama Smith, a millenarian-turned-socialist and Christian Israelite. Although an early follower of Robert Owen, he eventually rejected Owen's collective conception of property and found in individualism a "universalism" that allowed for the development of the "original genius". Without individualism, Smith argued, individuals cannot amass property to increase their happiness. William Maccall, another Unitarian preacher and probably an acquaintance of Smith, came to similar conclusions somewhat later, influenced by John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle and German Romanticism, in his 1847 work Elements of Individualism.
Individual
An individual is a single human being as contrasted with a social group or institution. Historically, the word entered English in the 15th century from the Latin individuus, meaning "indivisible" or "inseparable". Before the 17th century, the term did not carry its modern connotation of human separateness and was used primarily in discussions of metaphysics. In political and social philosophy, the individual is the fundamental unit of individualism, which emphasizes the moral worth, autonomy, and freedom of the person.
Individuation principle
The principle of individuation, or , describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things. For Carl Jung, individuation is a process of transformation whereby the personal and collective unconscious is brought into consciousness (by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association for example) to be assimilated into the whole personality. It is a natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche to take place.Jung, C. G. (1962). Symbols of Transformation: An analysis of the prelude to a case of schizophrenia (Vol. 2, R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). New York: Harper & Brothers. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.Jung's Individuation process Retrieved on 2009-2-20 In L'individuation psychique et collective, Gilbert Simondon developed a theory of individual and collective individuation in which the individual subject is considered an effect of individuation rather than a cause. Thus, the individual atom is replaced by an ongoing ontological process of individuation. Individuation is an always incomplete process, leaving a "pre-individual" leftover that makes future individuations possible.Gilbert Simondon. L'individuation psychique et collective (Paris, Aubier, 1989; reprinted in 2007 with a preface by Bernard Stiegler) The philosophy of Bernard Stiegler draws upon and modifies Gilbert Simondon's work on individuation and similar ideas in Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. For Stiegler, "the I, as a psychic individual, can only be thought in relationship to we, which is a collective individual. The I is constituted in adopting a collective tradition, which it inherits and in which a plurality of Is acknowledge each other's existence."Stiegler, Bernard (13 May 2004). "Bernard Stiegler: Culture and Technology". Tate Modern. . Retrieved 26 September 2020.
Individualism and society Individualism holds that a person taking part in society attempts to learn and discover their own interests are on a personal basis, without necessarily following the interests of a societal structure (an individualist need not be an egoist). An individualist does not necessarily follow one particular philosophy. They may create an amalgamation of elements from many philosophies, based on personal interests in particular aspects that they find useful. On a societal level, an individualist participates on a personally structured political and moral basis. Independent thinking and opinion are necessary traits of an individualist. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that his concept of the general will in The Social Contract is not a simple collection of individual wills and that it furthers the interests of the individual because, in Rousseau's view, the constraint of law benefits the individual because failing to respect the law entails ignorance and submission to one's passions rather than the autonomy of reason.
Individualism versus collectivism is a common dichotomy in cross-cultural research. Global comparative studies have found that the world's cultures vary in the degree to which they emphasize individual autonomy, freedom, and initiative (individualistic traits), as opposed to conformity to group norms, maintaining traditions, and obedience to in-group authority (collectivistic traits). Cultural differences between individualism and collectivism are differences in degree, not in kind. Cultural individualism is strongly correlated with GDP per capita and venture capital investment. The cultures of economically developed regions such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, North America, and Western Europe are among the most individualistic in the world. Middle income regions such as Eastern Europe, South America, and mainland East Asia have cultures that are neither highly individualistic nor highly collectivistic. The most collectivistic cultures in the world are from economically developing regions such as the Middle East and Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, Central Asia and Central America. Against this background, a number of prominent authors from various disciplines (e.g., Louis Dumont, Geert Hofstede, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ronald Inglehart) have supported the influential thesis that the modernization of a society goes hand in hand with an increasing degree of individualization. However, this thesis has also found its critics, who point out, among other things, that the cultural-historical development of individualism from antiquity to the present has not proceeded in a straight line, that some societies with a more collectivist orientation are nevertheless highly modernized and that the concepts of individualism, collectivism and modernity lack conceptual clarity so that an appropriately differentiated analysis of the alleged connection is still lacking.Kagitcibasi, C. (2005). Modernization does not mean westernization: Emergence of a different pattern. In W. Friedlmeier, P. Chakkarath, and B. Schwarz (Eds.), Culture and human development (pp. 255-272). Psychology Press.Chakkarath, P. (2024). Is the individual an enlightened westerner? Some skeptical remarks on Eurocentric notions of self and the development of individualism. In A. Dueck & L. Sundararajan (Eds.), Values and indigenous psychology in the age of the machine and market: When the gods have fled (pp. 131-156). Springer International Publishing.
An earlier analysis by Ruth Benedict in her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword states that societies and groups can differ in the extent to which they are based upon predominantly "self-regarding" (individualistic, and/or self-interested) behaviors, rather than "other-regarding" (group-oriented, and group, or society-minded) behaviors. Ruth Benedict made a distinction, relevant in this context, between guilt societies (e.g. medieval Europe) with an "internal reference standard" and shame societies (e.g. Japan, "bringing shame upon one's ancestors") with an "external reference standard", where people look to their peers for feedback on whether an action is acceptable or not.Benedict, Ruth; "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture." Rutland, VT and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co. 1954 orig. 1946.
Individualism is often contrasted either with totalitarianism or with collectivism, but there is a spectrum of behaviors at the societal level ranging from highly individualistic societies through mixed societies to collectivist.
A 2022 study published by the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization indicates that the individualistic societies have higher levels of charitable giving, providing a response to critics of individualism and capitalism. The authors propose that individualism increases charity through direct mechanisms (self-interested giving) and indirect mechanisms (reinforcing economic freedom). The findings support classical liberal arguments that individualism has virtues, aligning with the views of thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume.
Methodological individualism Methodological individualism is the view that phenomena can only be understood by examining how they result from the motivations and actions of individual agents. In economics, people's behavior is explained in terms of rational choices, as constrained by prices and incomes. The economist accepts individuals' preferences as givens. Becker and Stigler provide a forceful statement of this view: On the traditional view, an explanation of economic phenomena that reaches a difference in tastes between people or times is the terminus of the argument: the problem is abandoned at this point to whoever studies and explains tastes (psychologists? anthropologists? phrenologists? sociobiologists?). On our preferred interpretation, one never reaches this impasse: the economist continues to search for differences in prices or incomes to explain any differences or changes in behavior.
Political individualism