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Thread: The Threat of Individualism

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    The Threat of Individualism

    It's difficult to be anti-individualistic in a Western culture permeated with it.

    The Threat of Individualism

    ...Tocqueville believed that individualism was unique to democratic people and described it as a “Reflective and peaceable sentiment that disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of those like him and to withdraw to one side with his family and friends, so that after having thus created a little society for his own use, he willingly abandons society at large to itself.” This does not mean that acting in one’s own self-interest is bad, the danger comes when self-interest becomes a dominant passion that chokes out concern for the affairs of the local community.

    Equality of conditions produces this passion by removing the relationships of dependence and obligations that define aristocracy. Men rarely rise in aristocratic societies and never without the generosity of a lord. This prevents individualism because men will be loyal to those who benefited them. In democracies, however, men quickly rise and fall in society and believe that they do so on their own merits. The transience of wealth and status produce men who believe themselves to be in control of their own affairs and creates individualism.

    This threatens the democratic township because men who feel no obligation to their fellow citizens will not get involved in public affairs. Tocqueville believed the township was the most important aspect of American government because it conditions the people toward freedom....

    ...If this tendency is not actively combated American government will inevitably become more despotic. As society becomes more individualistic citizens will lose their love of freedom because they will cease to see how freedom is directly connected to their own well-being. Once this happens, they will no longer fight to preserve freedom and it will only be a matter of time before the country succumbs to despotism.

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    Ethereal's Avatar Senior Member
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    I think there is a tendency to conflate individualism, which is healthy, with atomism, which is not.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
    --John Adams

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    I think individualism leads to a sort of atomism, a separation from society, from cooperation with others in society, even in division of labor, specialization and trade.

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