Diversity of meanings of individualism in Western thought

The term individualism has had a long history in western thought. Its history may be variously traced to the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, to the decline of the aristocracy of the church or traditional religion, to the Industrial Revolution, and finally to the growth of capitalism or democracy.

In western thought the concept of individualism has carried a wide range of meanings, particularly in France, Germany, England and America. This article is a short survey of the wide range of implications and connotations the term has acquired in the four countries.

In France, to begin with, the distinctive features of individualism are well summed up in the following remarks made by the famous French social thinker, Louis Blanc: “The principle of individualism is that which, taking man out of society, makes him sole judge of what surrounds him and of him- self, gives him a heightened sense of his rights without showing him his duties, abandons him to his own powers, and, for the whole of government, proclaims laisser-faire.”

Individualism, inaugurated by Luther, has developed with an irresistible force, and, dissociated from the religious factor… it governs the present; it is the spiritual principle of things.”

The German idea of individualism has developed along various lines. While distinctive German sense of individualism places particular stress on the submergence of the individual in society and state, yet it celebrates the individual’s right of self-realisation in accordance with his personal desires and natural bent. That is in contrast with the French sense of individualism in which the individual’s heightened sense of his right to be himself contributes to his isolation and alienation from society.

Thomas Mann’s reflections on the basic distinctions between German individualism and individualism in general western thought may illustrate the point I am trying to make.

“It remains the uniqueness of German individualism that it is entirely compatible with ethical socialism, which is called 'state socialism' but which is quite distinct from the philosophy of the rights of man and Marxism. For it is only the individualism of the Enlightenment, the liberal individualism of the West, which is incompatible with the social principle.” 

In more specific terms, while the French sense of individualism is negative, signifying individual isolation and aggressive self-assertion, the German variety is positive signifying individual self-cultivation (selbtsbildung) and the integration of the individual into society where he plays an active role.

As the label of individualism crosses the borders of France and Germany into England it has been naturally subjected to cultural adaptation.

The characteristically English sense of individualism is well described by the English social thinker Steven Lukes:

“In England, the term [individualism] has played a smaller role, as an epithet for nonconformity in religion, for the sterling qualities of self- reliant Englishmen, especially among the nineteenth-century middle-classes, and for features common to the various strands of English liberalism.”

The liberalism and advocacy of individual human rights, which distinguished the English use of individualism, found their way as striking attributes of the American meaning. Here is how the United States Magazine and Democratic Review identifies the characteristically American qualities of the epithet of individualism: 

“The course of civilisation, it argued, is the progress of man from a state of savage individualism to that of an individualism more elevated, moral and refined…  The last order of civilisation, which is democratic, received its first permanent existence in this country… The peculiar duty of this country has been to exemplify and embody a civilisation in which the rights, freedom, and mental and moral growth of individual men should be made the highest end of all social restrictions and laws.” The discussion has revealed (contrary to one might expect about the monolithic nature of the principle of individualism in western thought) a wide range of diverse connotations and implications of the concept in the four countries, France, Germany, England and America.