The Cult of the Individual: Most people automatically assume that classical liberalism is a worldview that is almost exclusively focused on the individual and individualism. But during what might be considered the golden age of classical liberalism which lasted for about two hundred years (1750-1950) almost nobody lived as an individual. In fact, all of the evidence suggests that classical liberal societies were highly collectivist. Almost Borg-like. Importantly, this was a bottom-up form of collectivism where family, community and the Church set the agenda. It was a period of extreme uniformity. Maybe best exemplified in the way that we taught our kids. Classrooms full of uniformed children sitting at their desks arranged in perfect straight rows chanting out the times table. Discipline. Order. Everything in its rightful place. There were uniforms everywhere. Uniform ways of dressing. A uniform way of living. Everyone got married. Everyone had children. Population levels during this time sky-rocketed. And this was a period when consumerism was booming due to benefits of the Industrial Revolution. Levels of religiosity and conscientiousness went up considerably, especially during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The modern obsession with the individual and individualism didn’t arrive until the 20th century, and more specifically the mid-late 20th century. Individualism is almost entirely a product of socialist policies like welfarism and the welfare state in addition to the highly subversive strategies such as Critical Theory which aimed to destroy institutions like the family and the concept of marriage. We saw this most in the black community where family life literally disintegrated when welfare programs took over the role of the traditional family structure. The political right has completely appropriated this manufactured individualism, and are literally consuming the fall out from the destruction caused by their ideological enemy. Most people believe that only one ideological stream came out of the 18th century which means that everything that has gone right and wrong since must be the fault of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism. In reality, a second major ideological worldview had also burst forth into the Western world at exactly the same time. This top-down collectivist ideology ultimately became the fully fleshed out philosophy called Marxism. It was the failure of what might be called proto-Marxism during the early 19th century (French Revolution) that allowed classical liberalism to dominate for around 200 years. All of the major problems that have developed in the West-from individualism to corporatism-are actually a product of the rise of top-down collectivism throughout the West after WW2. Everything changed in the mid-late 20th century when the effects of socialism was combined with the political philosophy called Critical Theory which resulted in the systematic dismantling and atomization of Western nations. The anti-Enlightenment had finally gained widespread power and influence after nearly a ¼ of a millennia trying. Their new Marxist (obsessed with equity)/fascist (obsessed with race) hybrid doctrine-intersectionality, implicit bias and white privilege-was spreading throughout the West like a virus.
An interesting position, but, from my point of view most polarised issues would benefit from the question “Does it NEED to be either/or? Can’t it be Both, AND?” I think your characterisation of people in the Liberal Golden Age as being “almost Borg-like” is a tad extreme. I think there’s always been a balance between the individual and the collective and that balance has strayed too far towards the individual of late. Mankind needs to negotiate an ideal balance and nudge itself back towards that state of equilibrium. Of course, we need to understand how best to maintain that equilibrium too.
Daniel Duckington Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately it seems that the ideas of those who shout the most stridently in the USA ( mainly California ) tend to have their ideas accepted more or less without question in the rest of the English-speaking world by people who see that those ideas will give them an advantage. I’m reminded of Winston Churchill quote about The USA always doing the right thing, even if it exhausts all the other options in the process. I’d like to think that we have an instinct for that which is fair and right. It’s just that some of us have lost sight of what that actually is.
