Individualism

The Opposite of Collectivism Individualists societies are those in which the interest of the individual prevails over the interest of the group, and in which people are accepted to look after themselves and their imigiate families.

Or

The habit or principle of being independent & self reliant .

“A culture that celebrates individualism & Wealth”

Or

A Social theory favoring freedom of Action for Individual over collective or state control.

:Encouragement has been given to individualism, Free Enterprise, an the pursuit of Profit.

Or

Synonyms of Individuals are Independence, Self Direction, Self Reliance, free thinking, Free though, Orginallity.

Individualism

Individual is the moral stance, Political Philosophy, Ideaology, or Social outlook that enfaces the moral worth of the individual. Individualist promote the exercises of one’s m goal’s & desire and so value Independence & Self reliance & evocate that interest of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon once on interest by society or institutions such as the government.

Individualism makes the Individual its focus and so starts “with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation” Liberalism extentionalism and anarchism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis.

Individualism thus involves “the right of the individual to freedom & self realization”.

It has also been used as a term to denoting “The quality of being an individual; individualility “related to processing “an Individuals characterstics; aquirik “.Individualism is thus also associated with artistic and bohemian Interest at lifestyle where there is a tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinion and behaviors as so also with humanist philosophical position and ethics.

Explanation

1. Etymology

2. The Individual

3. The Individualism & society

1. Individuation Theories

2. Emotional Self Interest

3. Methodological Individualism

4. Political Individualism

1. Liberalism

2. Anarchism

1. Individualist Anarchism

5. Philosophical individualism

1. Ethical Egoism

2. Extentialism

3. Free Thought

4. Humanism

5. Hedonism

6. Libertinism

7. Objectivism

8. Philosophical Anarchism

9. Subjectivism

1. Solipsism

6. Economic Individualism

1. Liberalism

2. Individual Anarchism & economics

1. Mutualism

3. Libertarian Socialism

4. Left- Libertarianism

5. Right- Libertarianism

7. Individualism as Creative independent Life style

1. Etymology:

In the English language the word individualism “was first introduce, as a pejorative, by the owenites in the late 1830s,Although it is unclear if they were influenced by saint-simonianism or came up with it independity.A more positive use of the term in Britain came to bused with the writing of james alishama smith who was a millenarian and a Christian israliet.Although an early we owe nit socialist, he Eventually collected idea of property ,and found in individualism a “Universilism”that allowed for the development of the “Original Genius”. Without Individualism smith argued, Individual cannot a mass property to increase once happiness. Willam Mcal,Another Unitarian Preture, and probably an acquaintance of smith came somewhat later, Although Influenced by John stoart Mill, Thoms Corlile and German Romanticism, to the same positive conclusions in his 1847 work “elements of individualism”.

2. The Individual”

An individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. in the 15th century and earlier and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means “indivisible “, typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning a person. “(q.v “the problem of proper names”). From, the 17th century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from others persons and possessing his or her needs goals, and desires.

3 Individualism and society

Individualism holds that a person taking part in society attempts to further his or her own interests, or at least demands the right to serve his or her own interests, without taking the interests of society into consideration (an individualist need not be an egoist). The individualist does not favor any philosophy that requires the sacrifice of the self-interest of the individual for higher social causes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, claim the his concept of “general will” in the “social contract “is not the simple collection of individual wills and that its furthers the interests of the individual (the constrain of law Rousseau’s eyes, a form of ignorance and submission to one’s passionsintead of the proffered autonomy of reason).

Societies and groups can differ in the extent to which they are based upon predominantly “self- regarding” (individualistic, and arguably and self-interested) rather than :other –regarding”

(Group –oriented, and group or society –minded) behavior. Ruth Benedict made a distinction, relevant in this context, between “Guilt societies (e.g. medieval Europe ) with an “internal reference standard” and “shame” societies s(e.g. Japan, S”bringing shame upon one’s ancestors”) with an “external reference standard”, where people look to their peers for feedback in whether an action is “acceptable” or not ( also known as “group-think)

Individualism is often contrasted either with totalitarianism or with collectivism, but in fact there is a spectrum at the societal level ranging from highly individualistic societies through mixed societies to collectivist.

4. Political individualism

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things’ one will live. To live is rarest thing in the world.

Oscar Wilde, the soul of under socialism, 1891

Individualists are chief concerned with protecting individual autonomy against obligations imposed by social institutions ( such as the state or religious morality). For Lessen Brown “liberalism and anarchism are tow political philosophies that are fundamentally concerned with individual freedom yet differ from one another in very distinct ways. Anarchism shares with liberalism a radical commitment to individual freedom while rejecting liberalism’s competitive property relations.

Civil libertarianism is a strain of political though that civil liberties or which emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority (such as state, corporation social norms. Civil libertarianism is not a complete ideology; rather it is a collection of views on the specific issues of civil liberties and civil rights. Because of this a civil libertarian outlook is compatible with many other political philosophies and civil libertarianism is found on both the right and left in modern politics. For scholar Ellen meiksins wood “there are doctrines of individualism that are opposed to locking individualism and non-lock individualism may encompass socialism.

5. Philosophical individualism:

Ethical egoism (also called simply egoism) is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism. Which claims that people do not only act in their self-interest? Ethical egoism also formational egoism. Which holds merely that it is rational to act in one’s self-interest? These doctrines may though be completed with ethical egoism.

Ethical egoism contrasts with ethical altruism. Which holds moral agents have anobligation to help and derve others? Egoism and altruism both contrast with ethical utilitarianism. Which holds that a moral agent should treat one’s self (also known as the subject) with no higher regard one has for others (as egoism does, by elevating self-interests and “the self” to a status not granted to others), but that one also should not (as altruism does) sacrifice one’s own interests to help others’inerests, so long as one’s own interests ( i.e. one’s own desire or well-being ) are substanbtially-equilent to the others ‘interests and well-being egoism, utilitarianism, and altruism are all forms of consequentialillsm , but egoism and altruism contrast with utilitarianism, in that egoism and altruism are both agent-focused forms of consequentialism(i.e. subject –focused or subnjectiiive), but utilitarianism is called agent-neutral(i.e. objective and impartial) as it does not treat the subject ‘s(i.e. the self’s i.e. the moral “agents “) own interests as being more or less important than dig the same interests, desires or well-being were anyone else.

6. Economic individualism

The doctrine of economic individualism holds that each individual should be allowed autonomy in making his or her own economic decision as opposed to those decisions being made by the state, the community the corporation etc. for him or her.

7. Individualism as creative independent lifestyle:

Oscar wiled, famouslrish write of the decadent movement and famous dandy.The anarchist writer and bohemian Oscar wiled wrote in his famous essay the soul of man under socialism that “art is individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type slavery of custom, truancy of habit and the reduction of man to the level of a machine”. For anarchist historian George woodcock”Wilde’s aim in the soul of man under socialism is to seek the society most favorable to the artist…. For wild art is lathe supreme end containing within itself enlightenment and regeneration to which all else in society must be subordinated. Wiled represents the anarchist as aesthete”.