Individualism  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
Revision as of 19:42, 22 July 2007
WikiSysop (Talk | contribs)

← Previous diff
Revision as of 15:00, 15 November 2017
Jahsonic (Talk | contribs)

Next diff →
Line 1: Line 1:
-{{Template}}'''Individualism''' is a term used to describe a [[Morality|moral]], political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. Individualists promote the exercise of individual goals and desires. They oppose most external interference with an individual's choices - whether by [[society]], the [[state]], or any other group or institution. Individualism is therefore opposed to [[holism]], [[collectivism]], [[communalism]], [[statism]], [[socialism]], [[totalitarianism]], and [[communitarianism]], which stress that communal, group, societal, racial, or national goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism is also opposed to the view that adherents to [[tradition]], institutions of [[religion]], or any other group or authority should be empowered to limit an individual's choice of actions when those actions do not violate the rights of other individuals.+[[Image:Wanderer.jpg|thumb|200px|''[[Wanderer above the Sea of Fog]]'' ([[1818]]) by [[Caspar David Friedrich]]]]
 +{{Template}}
 +'''Individualism''' is a term used to describe a [[Morality|moral]], political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. Individualists promote the exercise of individual goals and desires. They oppose most external interference with an individual's choices - whether by [[society]], the [[state]], or any other group or institution. Individualism is therefore opposed to [[holism]], [[collectivism]], [[communalism]], [[statism]], [[socialism]], [[totalitarianism]], and [[communitarianism]], which stress that communal, group, societal, racial, or national goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism is also opposed to the view that adherents to [[tradition]], institutions of [[religion]], or any other group or authority should be empowered to limit an individual's choice of actions when those actions do not violate the rights of other individuals.
-Individualism has a controversial relationship with [[egoism]] (selfishness). While some individualists are egoists, they usually do not argue that selfishness is inherently good. Rather, some argue that individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed [[morality]] and that individuals should be free to choose to be selfish (or to choose any other lifestyle) if they so desire. Others would argue that individualist goals are not selfish so long as they do not harm others. Others still, such as [[Ayn Rand]], argue against "moral relativism" and claim selfishness to be a virtue.{{GFDL}}+Individualism has a controversial relationship with [[egoism]] (selfishness). While some individualists are egoists, they usually do not argue that selfishness is inherently good. Rather, some argue that individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed [[morality]] and that individuals should be free to choose to be selfish (or to choose any other lifestyle) if they so desire. Others would argue that individualist goals are not selfish so long as they do not harm others. Others still, such as [[Ayn Rand]], argue against "moral relativism" and claim selfishness to be a virtue.
 +== Individualism as creative independent lifestyle ==
 + 
 +The [[anarchist]] writer and [[bohemianism|bohemian]] [[Oscar Wilde]] wrote in his famous essay ''[[The Soul of Man under Socialism]]'' that "[[Art]] is individualism, and 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, tyranny 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 Wilde art is the supreme end, containing within itself enlightenment and regeneration, to which all else in society must be subordinated...Wilde represents the anarchist as [[aesthete]]." The word individualism in this way has been used to denote a personality with a strong tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors.
 + 
 +Anarchist writer [[Murray Bookchin]] describes a lot of [[individualist anarchism]] as people who "expressed their opposition in uniquely personal forms, especially in fiery tracts, outrageous behavior, and aberrant lifestyles in the cultural ghettos of fin de sicle New York, Paris, and London. As a credo, individualist anarchism remained largely a [[bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyle, most conspicuous in its demands for sexual freedom ('[[free love]]') and enamored of innovations in art, behavior, and clothing."
 + 
 +In relation to this view of individuality, French [[Individualist anarchist]] [[Emile Armand]] advocates [[ethical egoism|egoist]]ical denial of social conventions and dogmas to live in accord to one's own ways and desires in daily life since he emphasized anarchism as a way of life and practice. In this way he manifests "So the anarchist individualist tends to reproduce himself, to perpetuate his spirit in other individuals who will share his views and who will make it possible for a state of affairs to be established from which authoritarianism has been banished. It is this desire, this will, not only to live, but also to reproduce oneself, which we shall call "activity".
 + 
 +In the book ''[[Imperfect garden : the legacy of humanism]]'', humanist philosopher [[Tzvetan Todorov]] identifies individualism as an important current of socio-political thought within modernity and as examples of it he mentions [[Michel de Montaigne]], [[François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)|François de La Rochefoucauld]], [[Marquis de Sade]], and [[Charles Baudelaire]] In La Rochefoucauld, he identifies a tendency similar to [[stoicism]] in which "the honest person works his being in the manner of an [[sculptor]] who searches the liberation of the forms which are inside a block of [[marble]], to extract the truth of that matter." In Baudelaire he finds the [[dandy]] trait in which one searches to cultivate "the idea of beauty within oneself, of satisfying one´s passions of feeling and thinking."
 + 
 +The [[Russian American|Russian-American]] poet [[Joseph Brodsky]] one manifested that "The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even—if you will—eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with."
 + 
 +==Subjectivism==
 + 
 +[[Subjectivism]] is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like [[Solipsism]], it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. For example, [[Wittgenstein]] wrote in [[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]]: "The subject doesn't belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world" (proposition 5.632). Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is [[consciousness]] rather than perception that is reality ([[subjective idealism]]). In [[probability]], a subjectivism stands for the belief that probabilities are simply degrees-of-belief by rational agents in a certain proposition, and which have no objective reality in and of themselves.
 + 
 +[[Ethical subjectivism]] stands in opposition to [[moral realism]], which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; to [[error theory]], which denies that any moral propositions are true in any sense; and to [[non-cognitivism]], which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all. The most common forms of ethical subjectivism are also forms of [[moral relativism]], with moral standards held to be relative to each culture or society (c.f. [[cultural relativism]]), or even to every individual. The latter view, as put forward by [[Protagoras]], holds that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are subjects in the world. Moral subjectivism is that species of moral relativism that relativizes moral value to the individual subject.
 + 
 +[[Horst Matthai Quelle]] was a [[Spanish language]] [[Germany|German]] anarchist [[philosophy|philosopher]] influenced by [[Max Stirner]]. He argued that since the individual gives form to the world, he is those objects, the others and the whole universe. One of his main views was a "theory of infinite worlds" which for him was developed by [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-socratic philosophers]].
 + 
 +==See also==
 +* [[Conformity]]
 +* [[Decadence]]
 +* [[Individuation]]
 +* [[Voluntaryism]]
 + 
 +{{GFDL}}

Revision as of 15:00, 15 November 2017

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. Individualists promote the exercise of individual goals and desires. They oppose most external interference with an individual's choices - whether by society, the state, or any other group or institution. Individualism is therefore opposed to holism, collectivism, communalism, statism, socialism, totalitarianism, and communitarianism, which stress that communal, group, societal, racial, or national goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism is also opposed to the view that adherents to tradition, institutions of religion, or any other group or authority should be empowered to limit an individual's choice of actions when those actions do not violate the rights of other individuals.

Individualism has a controversial relationship with egoism (selfishness). While some individualists are egoists, they usually do not argue that selfishness is inherently good. Rather, some argue that individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed morality and that individuals should be free to choose to be selfish (or to choose any other lifestyle) if they so desire. Others would argue that individualist goals are not selfish so long as they do not harm others. Others still, such as Ayn Rand, argue against "moral relativism" and claim selfishness to be a virtue.

Individualism as creative independent lifestyle

The anarchist writer and bohemian Oscar Wilde wrote in his famous essay The Soul of Man under Socialism that "Art is individualism, and 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, tyranny 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 Wilde art is the supreme end, containing within itself enlightenment and regeneration, to which all else in society must be subordinated...Wilde represents the anarchist as aesthete." The word individualism in this way has been used to denote a personality with a strong tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors.

Anarchist writer Murray Bookchin describes a lot of individualist anarchism as people who "expressed their opposition in uniquely personal forms, especially in fiery tracts, outrageous behavior, and aberrant lifestyles in the cultural ghettos of fin de sicle New York, Paris, and London. As a credo, individualist anarchism remained largely a bohemian lifestyle, most conspicuous in its demands for sexual freedom ('free love') and enamored of innovations in art, behavior, and clothing."

In relation to this view of individuality, French Individualist anarchist Emile Armand advocates egoistical denial of social conventions and dogmas to live in accord to one's own ways and desires in daily life since he emphasized anarchism as a way of life and practice. In this way he manifests "So the anarchist individualist tends to reproduce himself, to perpetuate his spirit in other individuals who will share his views and who will make it possible for a state of affairs to be established from which authoritarianism has been banished. It is this desire, this will, not only to live, but also to reproduce oneself, which we shall call "activity".

In the book Imperfect garden : the legacy of humanism, humanist philosopher Tzvetan Todorov identifies individualism as an important current of socio-political thought within modernity and as examples of it he mentions Michel de Montaigne, François de La Rochefoucauld, Marquis de Sade, and Charles Baudelaire In La Rochefoucauld, he identifies a tendency similar to stoicism in which "the honest person works his being in the manner of an sculptor who searches the liberation of the forms which are inside a block of marble, to extract the truth of that matter." In Baudelaire he finds the dandy trait in which one searches to cultivate "the idea of beauty within oneself, of satisfying one´s passions of feeling and thinking."

The Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky one manifested that "The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even—if you will—eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with."

Subjectivism

Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. For example, Wittgenstein wrote in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "The subject doesn't belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world" (proposition 5.632). Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (subjective idealism). In probability, a subjectivism stands for the belief that probabilities are simply degrees-of-belief by rational agents in a certain proposition, and which have no objective reality in and of themselves.

Ethical subjectivism stands in opposition to moral realism, which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; to error theory, which denies that any moral propositions are true in any sense; and to non-cognitivism, which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all. The most common forms of ethical subjectivism are also forms of moral relativism, with moral standards held to be relative to each culture or society (c.f. cultural relativism), or even to every individual. The latter view, as put forward by Protagoras, holds that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are subjects in the world. Moral subjectivism is that species of moral relativism that relativizes moral value to the individual subject.

Horst Matthai Quelle was a Spanish language German anarchist philosopher influenced by Max Stirner. He argued that since the individual gives form to the world, he is those objects, the others and the whole universe. One of his main views was a "theory of infinite worlds" which for him was developed by pre-socratic philosophers.

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Individualism" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools