The philosophy of individualism implies that the universe is made up of individuated material down to the infinitesimal particle, ruling out a holistic responsibility for reality. Even in the big bang theory which ostensibly calls for that mysterious infinitesimal “thing” — the mother of individualism in which all things are at rest in potentiality — to exhale its becomingness but not as some grand scheme of seamless wholeness but rather as helter-skelter free spirit of things finding individuated identities — very much left to chance or more accurately countless probabilities and improbabilities.
To illustrate, let us look at our own individualistic planet which defiantly spins its marbleized beauty within a dark desolate envelope stamped return to sender. Out of a stroke of cosmic luck, it was able to embark on this thing called life, whose history for billions of years was pocked with improbability and uncertainty, very much like the fate of Mars. It is tempting to believe divine intervention turned its destiny from ineluctable destruction or at most a simmering ball of aimless microbes, to progressive refinement of living things with distinct identities; whatever, it is clear that the steady, and at times unsteady, probabilities coalesced to forge distinct individuals of consciousness without which there would be no Earth as we know it.
Consciousness effects a sense of self identity in which character evolves uniquely for its own sake, carving a purpose in its personal space to act out primitive intellection in order to survive. All living things have acquired their small worlds of action even if it is barely to nourish themselves. In the early evolvement of humanity the stress was not much above other creatures, that is, to survive crudely and in interaction with other sapiens, rather rudely. When superior character came into play, hero worship began to take hold wherein superior individuals were able to unleash their more productive behavior but only in behalf of themselves, and the lesser creatures in awe waited for the bones to be tossed. Thus was born the theory of individualism.
Individualism is not based on the survival of the fittest; on the contrary, it is the manipulation of the weak to make the superior character stronger, whence springs the divine right of kings and social contracts. It is no accident that history consists of heroes and creative individuals that have set up working societies, bad or good. The bias of this theory is that a priori there is the catalyst of lord and master before collective production begins. In this complex society there are millions of free spirited individuals that alone are responsible for all the goods, services and wars, and the collective body is perceived as swarming, aimless, individuals with little chance of carving out their own productive space, let alone identity.
Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: March 12, 2004.