There is much ado about Western individualism, how it has shaped us and the world. Most seem to think that individualism is a very old European phenomena, an integral part of our intellectual heritage. I don’t agree. While I think there has been greater individualism from an earlier time in the west, I see it more as belonging within the margin of variation of collectivity, rather than moving into its very own category of ‘individualism’.
Individuality is given meaning only in the context of a greater community. The collective defines the individual in the sense, that the collective determines the role of the individual. This doesn’t mean the individual is powerless before the collective, it means the individual has to work and exist in the context of a collective. Without the collective, the individual is left undefined as well as out of context, and ultimately, without meaning. Modern (or post-modern) individualism unroots the individual from the context of the collective and robs them of their definition, and thus, their meaning, while at the same time destroying the collective. Some view this as the emancipation of the individual, but they are people who view the collective more as a constraint than as a community of individuals, whom they are a part of. Others don’t see it as emancipation, they see it as slavery as opposed to freedom. In post-modern society individuals have become, or are rapidly becoming, meaningless, rootless human driftwood, going through life with no greater ideal than their person, and no greater goal than hedonism and exponentially growing consumption. An Age of Materialism.
