Individualism And Society Quotes & Sayings

Our era is one in which individualism has been submerged by the herd-like mentality of a society where conformity, mediocrity and lowered expectations are the norm. — Brian J. D'Souza

If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin. — C. G. Jung

Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism. One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge-information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state. — Sheldon Richman

If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own - I would refuse. I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it! — Ayn Rand

The chief safeguard of personal freedom in a democratic society is the anarchy and disorder of capitalist individualism. — Christopher Dawson

There might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best as he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers. — Ayn Rand

Where will it all end? In the destruction of all other command for the benefit of one alone - that of the state. In each man's absolute freedom from every family and social authority, a freedom the price of which is complete submission to the state. In the complete equality as between themselves of all citizens, paid for by their equal abasement before the power of their absolute master - the state. In the disappearance of every constraint which does not emanate from the state, and in the denial of every pre-eminence which is not approved by the state. In a word, it ends in the atomization of society, and in the rupture of every private tie linking man and man, whose only bond is now their common bondage to the state. The extremes of individualism and socialism meet: that was their predestined course. — Bertrand De Jouvenel

Yet, whatever form it takes, the belief that individual freedom exists only when the state is frail misunderstands the source of liberty. The state can be more or less effective in the pursuit of its goals - it can be stupid or smart - and it can be used for illiberal, totalitarian ends. But ultimately a healthy state dedicated to the public interest makes individual freedom possible. This is the paradox of individualism. The individual freedom that citizens of liberal societies rightly cherish, even our very concept of the individual, is impossible without a robust state. Modern individualism depends on the existence of vigorous and effective government dedicated to the public interest, to policies that a majority of citizens would support without regard to their particular position in society at any given moment. It depends as well on the willingness of individual citizens to imagine themselves as members of a common public whose interests the state regularly vindicates. — Mark S. Weiner

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: "I've got mine, so why don't you get yours" and "What's in it for me? — Joe Biden

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world , individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. (Wakefield) — Nathaniel Hawthorne

One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery. — Wallace Stegner

In a society in which individualism is becoming rampant, people more and more believe that they are the center of the world. Such a belief system makes individual failure almost inconsolable. — Martin Seligman

People are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions, or when they are not at work, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. Subjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence cases to have any point of meaning — Aldous Huxley

The basic struggle today is not between individualism and collectivism, free enterprise and socialism, democracy and dictatorship. These are only the superficial manifestations of a deeper struggle which is moral and spiritual and involves above all else whether man shall exist for the state, or the state for man, and whether freedom is of the spirit or a concession of a materialized society. — Fulton J. Sheen

Once upon a time, one looked to society
or class, or community
for one's normative vocabulary: what was good for everyone was by definition good for anyone. But the converse does not hold. What is good for one person may or may not be of value or interest to another. Conservative philosophers of an earlier age understood this well, which was why they resorted to religious language and imagery to justify traditional authority and its claims upon each individual.
But the individualism of the new Left respected neither collective purpose nor traditional authority: it was, after all, both new and left. What remained to it was the subjectivism of private
and privately-measured
interest and desire. This, in turn, invited a resort to aesthetic and moral relativism: if something is good for me it is not incumbent upon me to ascertain whether it is good for someone else
much less to impose it upon them ("do your own thing"). — Tony Judt

The individual is seen as the ultimate. Consequently, we have witneed a decline of civic virtue at the expense of the common good. In addition, the loss of an objective standard for determining what is good and healthy for society has left us with nothing but a vague cultural desire to respect diversity and tolerate the perspectives and choices of others. Radical individualism is undermining the corporate solidarity that gave rise to our national success. — Chris Brauns

If I want to understand an individual human being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man and discard all theories in order to adopt a completely new and unprejudiced attitude. I can only approach the task of understanding with a free and open mind, whereas knowledge of man, or insight into human character, presupposes all sorts of knowledge about mankind in general. — C. G. Jung

This myth of meritocracy and equal opportunities encourages individualism over collective action, because when people believe this myth, they obviously see no need for protest movements around particular classes or identities, such as the Women's Movement or the Civil Rights workplace, education or in their personal lives, they are more likely to blame themselves, rather than sexism, racism, class oppression or homophobia; concepts which in current society are often seen as out of date. This type of blame even applies to experiences of actual violence or harassment with too many people believing that it is their fault if they are sexually harassed in the workplace or at school, abused by a partner or are a victim of sexual violence. Our society encourages this view, and in turn, that keeps people isolated and alone, rather than providing them the opportunity to get involved in collective struggles against such common experiences. — Finn Mackay

Phrases like 'the team spirit' are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties. — Muriel Spark

When we begin to think like everybody else thinks, that is dangerous. Individualism is part of our divine endowment. God made us as individuals and we are responsible before Him. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

I didn't want to be in the teeming mass of the working class.[ ... ] I didn't want to live and die in the same place with only a week at the seaside in between. I dreamed of escape - but what is terrible about industrialisation is that it makes escape necessary. In a system that generates masses, individualism is the only way out. But then what happens to community - to society? — Jeanette Winterson

I have visited sweatshops, factories, and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it. The foundation of society is laid upon a basis of ... individualism, conquest and exploitation ... A social order such as this, built upon such wrong and basic principles, is bound to retard the development of all. The output of a cotton mill or a coal mine is considered of greater importance than the production of healthy, happy-hearted and free human beings. We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. — Helen Keller

We hold further that Communism is not only desirable, but that existing societies, founded on Individualism, are inevitably impelled in the direction of Communism. The development of Individualism during the last three centuries is explained by the efforts of the individual to protect himself from the tyranny of Capital and of the State. For a time he imagined, and those who expressed his thought for him declared, that he could free himself entirely from the State and from society. "By means of money," he said, "I can buy all that I need." But the individual was on a wrong tack, and modern history has taught him to recognize that, without the help of all, he can do nothing, although his strong-boxes are full of gold. — Pyotr Kropotkin

For it is through joy that the Individualism of the future will develop itself. Christ made no attempt to reconstruct society, and consequently the Individualism that he preached to man could be realised only through pain or in solitude. The ideals that we owe to Christ are the ideals of the man who abandons society entirely, or of the man who resists society absolutely. But man is naturally social. — Oscar Wilde

I long for the day when people embrace our common humanity and respect diversity. — Liza M. Wiemer

Party tactics?" "People like your wife are dangerous." "Why?" Hamilton asked. "They don't belong to any group. They fool around with everything. As soon as we turn our back - " "So you destroy them. You turn them over to the lunatic patriots." "The lunatic patriots," McFeyffe said, "we can understand. But not your wife. She signs Party peace petitions and she reads the Chicago Tribune. People like her - they're more of a menace to Party discipline than any other bunch. The cult of individualism. The idealist with his own law, his own ethics. Refusing to accept authority. It undermines society. It topples the whole structure. Nothing lasting can be built on it. People like your wife just won't take orders." "McFeyffe, — Philip K. Dick

It is interesting to note that the "sexual revolution" was sometimes portrayed as a communal utopia, whereas in fact it was simply another stage in the historical rise of individualism. As the lovely word "household" suggests, the couple and the family would be the last bastion of primitive communism in liberal society. The sexual revolution was to destroy these intermediary communities, the last to separate the individual from the market. The destruction continues to this day. — Michel Houellebecq

Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology. — Jonathan Sacks

But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences. — John Stuart Mill

It is difficult not to conclude that American society has what might be termed Capitalism with a vengeance - a reverence for the values of individualism, competition, and profit of such intensity as to provide incentives to crime that go well beyond a level that must be considered inevitable in a modern complex society, even a basically capitalist one. — Edwin M. Schur

When we respect our humanity, we can embrace our diversity. — Liza M. Wiemer

Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism. — Jonathan Haidt

I should like [people] to like the purely individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. and They only like to do the collective thing. — D.H. Lawrence

All over the world people live in intimate daily contact with one another. They wash together, eat and sleep together, face challenges together, share joy and sorrow. The rugged individual who relies on no one else is a figure who can only exist in a culture of domination where a privileged few use more of the world's resources than the many who must daily do without. Worship of individualism has in part led us to the unhealthy culture of narcissism that is so all pervasive in our society. — Bell Hooks

The same touchy sense of personal honor that is at the root of Achilles' wrath still governs relations between man and man in modern Greece; Greek society still fosters in the individual a fierce sense of his privileges, no matter how small, of his rights, no matter how confined, of his personal worth, no matter how low. And to defend it, he will stop, like Achilles, at nothing. — Bernard Knox

I think the idea of individualism has become more dominating in our society. You can even see it by our political system: how people vote, the job situation, the sociological evolution that's happening, what's happening in the Middle East and so forth. — Nicolas Winding Refn

For the developing world, the past half-century has been a time of recurring hope and frequent disappointment. Great waves of change have washed over the landscape, from the crumbling of colonial hegemonies in mid-century to the recent collapse of Communist empires. But too often, what rushed in to replace the old order were empty hopes-not only in the false allure of state socialism, non-alignment and single-party rule, but also the false glories of romantic nationalism and narrow tribalism, and the false dawn of runaway individualism. — His Highness The Aga Khan

the causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced. The Bible gives us a matrix of causes. One factor is oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15), or loans with excessive interest (Exodus 22:25-27), or unjustly low wages (Jeremiah 22:13; James 5:1-6). Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear (Amos 5:11-12; Ezekiel 22:29; Micah 2:2; Isaiah 5:8). As we have seen, a great deal of the Mosaic legislation was designed to keep the ordinary disparities between the wealthy and the poor from becoming aggravated and extreme. Therefore, whenever great disparities arose, the prophets assumed that to some degree it was the result of selfish individualism rather than concern with the common good. — Timothy J. Keller

As the man was bundled into an armoured police van, he turned and shouted: 'Don't waste your life following others! Be individual! Live your dreams!'

I stood there thinking. He was right. Ours is a society of followers, trapped by an island mentality. — Tahir Shah

It is only you, treading in the blessed path of peace and freedom, who can bring about the true regeneration of society, and with it the true happiness of your own lives. — Auberon Herbert

they argue that belief in a transcendent being conveys a genetic advantage: that couples who follow one of the three religions of the Book and maintain patriarchal values have more children than atheists or agnostics. You see less education among women, less hedonism and individualism. And to a large degree, this belief in transcendence can be passed on genetically. Conversions, or cases where people grow up to reject family values, are statistically insignificant. In the vast majority of cases, people stick with whatever metaphysical system they grow up in. That's why atheist humanism - the basis of any 'pluralist society' - is doomed. — Michel Houellebecq

What fragmented individualism really meant was what happened to a black man who tried to make it in this society: in order to succeed, he had to become an imitation white man - dress white, talk white, think white, express the values of middle-class white culture (at least when he was in the presence of white men). Implied in all this was the hiding, the denial, of his selfhood, his negritude, his culture, as though they were somehow shameful. If he succeeded, he was an alienated marginal man - alienated from the strength of his culture and from fellow black men, and never able, of course, to become that imitation white man because he bore the pigment that made the white man view him as intrinsically other. — John Howard Griffin

I think we need to find a way to provide people with a reason that the average man on the street can grasp and embrace, that would cause him to move away from the centuries-old idea of the individual and individualism, and move toward a different concept of what it means to be human in a collective society. Unless he has that reason, unless he has a fundamental reason to do that, it's going to be very difficult to cause him to make that shift, in my view. — Neale Donald Walsch

None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man or person old and departed. Ah me! no man goeth alone. All men go in flocks to this saint or that poet, avoiding the God who seeth in secret. They cannot see in secret; they love to be blind in public. They think society is wiser than their soul, and know not that one soul, and their soul, is wiser than the whole world. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In "Big Business," Lilienthal argues that not only the productive and distributive superiority of the United States but also its national security depends on industrial bigness; that we now have adequate public safeguards against abuses of big business, or know well enough how to fashion them as required; that big business does not tend to destroy small business, as is often supposed, but, rather, tends to promote it; and, finally, that a big-business society does not suppress individualism, as most intellectuals believe, but actually tends to encourage it by reducing poverty, disease, and physical insecurity and increasing the opportunities for leisure and travel. — John Brooks

There were always men who looked beyond the dimensions of their own society- and while they may have been called fools or criminals in their time they are the roster of great men as far as the record of human history is concerned- and visualized something which can be called universally human and which is not identical with what a particular society assumes human nature to be. There were always men who were bold and imaginative enough to see beyond the frontiers of their own existence. — Erich Fromm

Now, there's a desire for order, authority coming from a feeling that society has gone too far to the side of individualism and liberalism. — Marion Marechal-Le Pen

At the individual level, the great controlling myth of our time has been the belief that within each of us there is a real, inner, private 'self', long buried beneath layers of socialization and attempted cultural and religious control, and needing to be rediscovered if we are to live authentic lives. When we 'discover' this 'true authentic self' , we must do whatever it dictates, even if it means ignoring the norms of the 'unenlightened' society all around us. — N. T. Wright

When there is no other aim but to outstrip constantly the point arrived at, how painful to be thrown back!...Since imagination is hungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropes at random — Emile Durkheim

If a blending of individualism and of cooperative participation is a prerequisite to a democratic solution of the problems of a society of free men, it must also be noted that an atmosphere of freedom is required if these problems are to be met constructively and as they arise. — Marshall Field

I realized, listening to the silences that fell sometimes in my interview groups, that there are things that are sayable and unsayable about motherhood today. It is permissable, for example, to talk a lot about guilt, but not a lot about ambition. You can talk a lot about sex (or its lack) but not about the feelings that are keeping women from sleeping with their husbands. You can talk about society's lack of "appreciation" of mother's and the need for more social validation
but not about policy that might actually make life better. You cannot really challenge the American culture of rugged individualism. — Judith Warner

What is freedom as a human experience? Is the desire for freedom something inherent in human nature? Is it an identical experience regardless of what kind of culture a person lives in, or is it something different according to the degree of individualism reached in a particular society? Is freedom only the absence of external pressure or is it also the presence of something - and if so, of what? What are the social and economic factors in society that make for the striving for freedom? Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from? Why then is it that freedom is for many a cherished goal and for others a threat? — Erich Fromm

The "pathology of normalcy" rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. On the contrary, the sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology and arranged the means to give satisfactions which fit the pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation, in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society - and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic. — Erich Fromm

It should probably be said that the virtues of the society of the self are entirely debatable. Orienting laws around individuals led directly to an entire tradition of human rights and the prominence of individual liberty in legal codes. That has to count as progress. But reasonable people disagree about whether we have now tipped the scales too far in the direction of individualism, away from those collective organizations: the union, the community, the state. Resolving those disagreements requires a different set of arguments - and values - than the ones we need to explain where those disagreements came from. — Steven Johnson

Therefore a simple and poor society can exist as a democracy on a basis of sheer individualism. But a rich and complex industrial society cannot so exist; for some individuals, and especially those artificial individuals called corporations, become so very big that the ordinary individual is utterly dwarfed beside them, and cannot deal with them on terms of equality. It therefore becomes necessary for these ordinary individuals to combine in their turn, first in order to act in their collective capacity through that biggest of all combinations called the Government, and second, to act, also in their own self-defense, through private combinations, such as farmers' associations and trade unions. — Theodore Roosevelt

A society like ours, which professes no one religion and has allowed all religions to decay, which indulges freedom to the point of license and individualism to the point of anarchy, needs all the support that responsible, cultivated homes can furnish. I hope your generation will provide a firmer shelter for civilized standards. — Alan K. Simpson

This was replaced by a widespread and aggressive individualism whereby everyone looks out for himself, at the expense of others and without worrying about the good of society. — Zygmunt Bauman

A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows that from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas of freedom. A free society fertilizes the soil in which non-conformity and dissent and individualism can grow. — Henry Steele Commager

Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights - and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. — Ayn Rand

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and, in fact, it has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

God is a complex of ideas formed by the tribe, the nation, and humanity, which awake and organize social feelings and aim to link the individual to society and to bridle the zoological individualism. — Maxim Gorky

At the same time, however, the necessity for economic change in our countries has led us to conceive laws and accept traditions often at the expense of the individual person. Just when many are becoming conscious of the fundamental heritage of the Judeo-Christian tradition to respect each human person, friend or foe, within the actual structure of our society to apply this truth. The very efficiency demanded by our technocratic industrial society renders the life of the old, the unstable and the handicapped almost impossible. as the values of efficiency, individualism, and wealth become the only motivations, they tend to stifle the profound aspirations of man so that little by little he loses all sense of fellowship and community. — Jean Vanier

Source of national strength. By providing leadership, guidance, restraint, security, and values, the family unit promotes the greatness of the nation. Should the family fail in these responsibilities, the nation will suffer as a result. — John Eidsmoe

The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism — Martin Luther King Jr.

I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential order of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls. — Auberon Herbert