Individuality vs. The Collective Good

Individuality vs. The Collective Good

The United States finds itself historically and perpetually locked into a philosophical and ideological debate over the notions of individuality and self-determination. On one hand, we are culturally predisposed to value these concepts, to pursue our own personal versions of happiness and to promote relative free thinking and creativity. These are the features that make capitalism such an attractive template for pursuing individualist aims. And yet, because this arrangement does also produce stark evidence of inequality, we find that it opens the door for regular criticism by those who choose a more collectivist worldview. Specifically, there is a notion that all of our ambitions should be channeled toward advancing the greater good and that the emphasis on individualism often undermines this advancement.

Valuing Self-Determination:

The notion of self-determination as an expression of individualism is a concept which has frequently been subject to debate in philosophical history. Many of the world's greatest thinkers have measured the question of individual entitlements against the importance of a strong unifying culture and, even beyond that, a shared sense of morality. Indeed, morality is often posited as the strongest argument in favor of the collective good and is generally enforced through a combination of cultural norms and regulatory or legal conditions. The contention is that humanity is beholden to certain social expectations, the adherence to which is determinant of nothing less than the stability, viability and longevity of a society. According to the text by Paul (2009), this is known as the 'social contract.'

As Paul indicates, though, the degree to which individual and shared interests are represented by the social contract is debatable. According to Paul, "philosophers through the ages such as Locke, Hobbes, and Hume have basically argued for the importance of a 'social contract' which stems from 'natural law' (for this one can go back as far as Aristotle but also Aquanis and Hobbes). This 'social contract' is provided only by the consent of individuals as natural law doesn't apply to the society as a whole but to the individual. In other words, the 'social contract' does not exist without the individual rights aligning themselves with the contract first." (Paul, p. 1)

This is an important distinction because it allows room for individual resistance. The persistence of free will denotes that in spite of the presence of natural law, we may be given over to individual points of disagreement with the collective. Or we may, out of necessity and survival, be motivated to act in contradiction to 'natural law' as a matter of self-interest. This is important because just as frequently as the social contract has been utilized to maintain necessary and positive social order, it has been exploited to serve authoritarian interests, to sustain power for select groups and to quell the impulse toward ethical resistance within a given society.

The United States is an excellent embodiment of the role that individuality plays in shaping a more ethically oriented and progressive society. A nation with a history of great rhetorical progressiveness has also been guilty of incredible, long-term and institutionalized atrocities such as slavery and segregation. In these examples, we can see that the term 'natural law' can be heavily distorted to promote the idea that, for the greater good, certain circumstances are simply preordained. This distortion is consistent with the argument by Ahmad (2010) "that man by nature will bow to the authority of society only when he is driven by selfish motives; otherwise he will have to be coerced into submission."

In the instance of America's shameful racial history, the self-interest of southern whites combined with the violent coercion of black slavery would produce a highly objectionable variance on the 'social contract.' It is therefore a decidedly important reality that certain individuals refused this contract, One is especially inclined in such instances to recognize the importance of non-conformity in helping to drive improvements in human rights, equality and other dimensions of positive civil order. For instance, we consider luminaries such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Or the earliest participants in the American feminist movement, whose willful decision to resist the forces of authoritarianism as self-defined individuals would be essential to moving our society in a more progressive direction. In the case of Martin Luther King in particular, we recognize the considerable risk to his own person that the Civil Rights leaders undertook in spite of the prevailing cultural mores of his time an place.

In other words, had King simply accepted the order of things based on the premise that the needs of the many call for adherence to the existing rules and values of a given society, he may never have levied the same impact on the world. When we consider the role played by individual dissent in bringing moral and ethical improvement to society, it becomes clear that discourse on the 'greater good' must be highly scrutinized before we commit to its moral value. In fact, this seems to be the cultural orientation of the United States, a nation given over to sustaining a distinctive social order and identity but also to serving as a forum for aggressive individualist self-determination.

As a result, today, there is a fairly nuanced spectrum of views of finding the proper balance. Some view communal and collective thinking as inherently more ethical. According to Etzioni, "in Western democratic societies, where the pendulum has shifted toward extremes of individual self-indulgence and a lack of community responsibility, communitarianism often takes the form of a critique of this excess." (Etzioni, p. 1) This suggests that we could improve our collective experience as Americans by committing to less individualist impulses.