[This paper was presented at the Graduate Programs in Arts Conference, Washington, DC, 2019.]
In the common use of the terms individualism and collectivism, each concept is placed opposite the other as its opposite. Individualism is depicted as giving priority to the individual and his interests over the group, and collectivism is depicted as giving priority to the interests of society or the group over the interests of the individual. We find echoes of these two common perceptions, for example, in the first lines of the entry for each concept on the Arabic Wikipedia. In the approach to individualism, we find it a philosophy that calls for declaring the moral value of the individual as an independent value in itself. It also calls for “practicing the individual’s goals and desires” in a way that is not compatible with the group. On the other hand, collectivism is described as a philosophy that emphasizes “the importance of mutual interdependence among members of society,” and calls for “giving priority to the goals of all society above the goals of the individual”. We find the same echoes in the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of individualism and collectivism as well, as each of them revolves around the conflict between what is individual and what is collective.
Through all of this, it seems reasonable to consider individualism and collectivism as two opposites that are impossible to reconcile, as each philosophy calls for giving priority to what the other tries to discourage. According to these common perceptions, since the two philosophies stem from a “natural” conflict between the individual and society, there is no doubt that the conflict between them is also an eternal, natural conflict. The truth is that all of this is true to some extent, at least in the context of the two conceptions and under their foundations. But the fragility of the alleged universality of such assumptions quickly becomes clear whenever they are put into question. I claim that the contradiction between the popular concepts of individualism and collectivism is not a real contradiction, but rather an apparent contradiction, and that they are in fact merely two sides of the same coin. In addition to my belief in their fallacy, I claim that the two perceptions remove the political contexts from the phenomena and strip them of their historicity in exchange for exalting – albeit implicitly – the importance of the phenomena that crystallized in some regions of Western Europe and exalting their historical experience. This ultimately leads to generalizing what cannot be generalized, and also leads to misusing analytical tools for social phenomena.
There is no doubt that a claim of this magnitude requires a parallel proposal, a proposal that addresses not only the development of the concepts of individualism and collectivism, but also Eurocentrism, the secularism of philosophy, colonial discourses, and the relationship between the concept of the individual and the dominance of the capitalist system in the last three centuries as well. But such a proposal is beyond the scope of the article, and it is a project too large to be reduced to even a single book. What I will try here, on the other hand, is to approach the concepts of individualism and collectivism philosophically in order to dismantle the “inevitability” of the common image of them and refute their universality. In other words, I will try in general to review the problems on which the two concepts are based, first, and to disentangle the connection between them and what is called human nature or instinct, as a result of which societies are formed. While I will briefly touch on other points, the thesis of this article is mainly focused on refuting the inevitability of the two concepts and refuting the claim of using them as tools valid for all times and places.
As I mentioned earlier, the common image of individualism is based on putting the individual and his interests ahead of the group. In this conception, the concepts of individual and group seem so clear and intuitive that they do not need explanation; The individual is an individual, and the group is a group. But the truth is that they are pre-loaded with assumptions and implications that carry the seeds of individuality and herald its naturalness. In order to clarify this, I pose the following question: What is an individual? Or more precisely, what makes us say that we are individuals? What is the line between me being an individual and you being another individual?
Again, the answer seems obvious: in general, I am an individual (leaving aside ego issues for a moment) because I can refer to myself, because I can stand in front of a mirror with other individuals and distinguish myself from them, and because I can say “I” without anyone sharing my ego.
Here lies the first problem. This intuitive conception of the individual has two dimensions that must be distinguished. The first dimension is the physical dimension, by which I mean the physiological body with all that it is and what it is. Man is not the only one who possesses this physical dimension, of course, but other creatures also possess it. As for the second dimension, it is what may be called the subjective dimension (or what may be called the spiritual dimension or something similar). This dimension is based on a specific theoretical conception of the self, on my conception of what theoretically makes me who I am. Just as the distinction between two different individuals is possible on the material physical level, the distinction between two different selves is linked to drawing the boundaries of the non-self, that is, the boundaries of the other. Whatever it is called, this dimension seems to be purely human – at least so far – that is, it is one of the properties of being human.
Therefore, any definition of the individual involves the combination of two different dimensions, a physical dimension and a subjective dimension. But while the first dimension can be defined physically, that is, by molding it in time and space, it is impossible to define the subjective dimension in the same way. Impossibility is not the result of the sublimation of the spirit or anything similar, but rather it results from the fact that the subjective dimension is necessarily social. It is impossible to define or imagine the self outside the framework of society, outside the framework of human interaction. I will clarify the point about the definition of the self at the theoretical level further when talking about social normalization.
This does not mean that the physical and subjective dimensions are separate from each other. Of course, they can be treated philosophically as if they were, and there is no problem with that as long as the matter is limited to the level of approach or analysis. But in fact, they are intrinsically linked to each other; Wherever there is a self, there is a body, and whenever I refer to “my ego” – at least in the common perception – I am referring to what does not exceed the boundaries of my body, regardless of my perception of myself. But what is important here is not the boundaries of these two dimensions or demarcation of the differences between them, but rather clarifying the essential interconnection between them in any definition of the individual.
In fact, this problem in defining the individual and the organic relationship between the physical and subjective dimensions is one of the points with which Eagleton opens his book Materialism. In order to respond to idealist philosophies, Eagleton attempts to shed light on the cognitive defect resulting from ignoring the body (or the materiality of the body) in the process of philosophizing. According to his claim, the body is supposed to be made a philosophical starting point because our belonging to the human race and our distinction from it at the same time intersect in this body. In other words, the same body that makes us individuals also makes us part of a group, and realizing this is central to any attempt at philosophizing because philosophizing involves part of ourselves and part of our non-self. In addition, the fact that the body is so central indicates its importance in shaping the self, and therefore it is not correct to deal with it in isolation.
What does it all mean? Or rather, what is the importance of this distinction between the physical and subjective dimensions, at least at the theoretical level? There is a preliminary answer: because ignoring it leads to a wrong perception not only about the individual, but also about society. I cite here the concept of the individual as it appears in Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy, or at least as it is revealed in her book The Virtue of Selfishness. There is a clear confusion in her presentation between the levels of physical and subjective existence. As she says, what an individual needs to survive is not radically different from what he needs to live a decent life or to be happy. Rather, Rand goes on to say that the objectivist moral system originally aims to guide a person to the morals that he must have in order to survive and achieve the purpose of his life, as if the two matters were equal. It is not surprising that her value system itself is based on the principle of self-preservation, which underlies in her philosophy a specific concept of happiness, and it is the same happiness that she indicated cannot be achieved except under the capitalist system.
It is also not difficult to notice the problems surrounding such a proposal. Ayn Rand’s mistaken confusion results from ignoring the reality of the physical and self dimensions and their organic relationship. This is what led her to confuse what the individual needs in order to preserve both his body and his self first, and led to portraying the relationship between the self and the body as a master-slave relationship second.
It is wrong to equate the two dimensions. We can say that eating food is a matter of life and death, this is self-evident. But can we consider the accumulation of wealth – one of the existing concepts of happiness – as a matter of life and death? Can it be said that watching all the Saudi League matches is necessary to survive?
It is clear from these two naive examples that reducing the individual’s existence to its subjective dimension or portraying the existence of the self and the purpose of its existence as if they were two independent and self-existing matters is dangerous. The truth is that Ayn Rand’s identification of the physical and subjective dimensions is accompanied by a false perception of society as well. As Rand also says, society is merely an aggregate of individuals, and there is no transcendent aspect to society, that is, there are no social values, no social morals, or anything like that. Everything emanates from the individual first and foremost, and every apparently transcendent phenomenon is just an illusion.
This claim can be refuted in three ways: First, it is not correct to define things by reducing them to their components. If this were true, then existing beings would be equal in that they are all a group of atoms, but we and grape leaves would be equal in this respect. But the nature of any phenomenon, or what makes it different from others, so to speak, requires the inclusion of the conceptual or theoretical aspect in its analysis. Defining the difference between any two matters requires familiarity, even if general, with the theoretical conception of the limits of each.
In addition, if we agree with Rand’s definition of society as a collection of individuals, we find that it is impossible for any distinct societies to exist in reality. There will not be a “primitive and brutal” Arab society in the Middle East compared to a civilized Israeli society – as she pointed out in one of her interviews – because there is no entity called society in the first place, but only individuals exist. The problem that Ayn Rand fell into stems from her reliance on the physical, material dimension as if it were the only criterion and source of previous meaning for the existence of society.
Secondly, based on what I argued above about the subjective dimension, we must highlight the dangers of assuming that the individual exists “prior to” society, or exists apart from it. The error results partly from the belief that there is an asocial human nature, that is, from the belief that the self exists as a concept in which the social aspect has nothing to do. To fully understand the greater problems related to this matter, I need to examine its relationship to theories of the state of nature and the assumption of an absolute essence of the pre-social human self. I believe that such theories assume a specific form and pattern of society and social nature, as if they were a specific stage of human development. In doing so, they deny that the forms of social interaction before them had any social meaning.
Refuting this idea requires focusing on the concept of socialization, which is one of the foundations on which the self is essentially formed. By socialization, I do not mean merely mingling or coexisting, that is, being next to others and living a private life among them. The concept of imprinting is greater than that, as it includes our desire for a social existence that preceded ours, for a human “collection,” so to speak. This combination formulates for us roles that contribute to shaping our behavior at the same time as it involves us in what can be called the world of meanings, and our involvement in the world of meanings is what qualifies us to perceive what is around us.
I go back to citing Rand’s objectivism to further illustrate the point. Rand’s philosophy is based on the assumption that we are able to perceive the world around us unmediated, that is, that we are in direct contact with the world through our senses and are thus able to rationalize it and perceive its meanings. Based on this, Rand believes that it is possible to reach objective morality, that is, to live in this world according to the goodness that the mind dictates to us, since the mind has the ability to distinguish and integrate tangible things.
But this assumption is incomplete, as feeling is one thing, but perceiving it or placing it in a fabric of meanings is another. This awareness belongs to the world of meanings within which we come to exist, and it goes beyond Rand’s simple distinction between what is “harmful” or “beneficial” with regard to self-preservation. The sun to a person living in the desert means something different to a person living in cold climates, even though it is the same sun. This difference in meaning is rooted in the social world of meanings, and we do not have the control to shape it, nor do we have a monopoly on it.
Perhaps citing Anthony Giddens’s thesis on social imprinting in daily life (or manifestations of social imprinting) is necessary here to clarify the extent of how deep this imprinting goes. Our daily lives, he says, are bound by rules. When we exchange conversations, for example, we tend to face each other, to stand face to face. In addition, we generally adhere to conversational etiquette, such as taking turns speaking and listening, speaking in a tone of voice appropriate to the context, adopting friendly body language, and other rules that we acquire by virtue of our involvement in society.
Giddens also cites the act of walking. When one of us goes out into the street, we expect people to walk in a specific way, or rather in a range of ways included within the concept of walking. This means that running becomes out of the ordinary, outside the rules (except when it comes to exercise or other contexts in which it is “justified”), as does walking sideways or backwards rather than forwards.
In addition, when we drive a car, we often abide by the same laws and behave according to the same etiquette that we think others abide by and behave with. This results from our belonging to a specific fabric of meanings during the process of driving a car.
These examples illustrate the extent of social imprinting and its penetration into our behavior and daily life. But this imprinting, as I mentioned earlier, affects our perception of ourselves as well. In general, the self exists only within a “societal” framework, meaning that the perception we have of ourselves is shaped not only by our beliefs about ourselves, but also through interaction with “non-selfs,” with others. Our involvement in the human collective means our involvement in a world of meanings, and our selves are formed in the interactions emerging within this world.
But this digression is not enough. It is impossible to ignore the fact that there is some truth in Ayn Rand’s definition of society. Any society, whatever it may be, consists first and foremost of individuals, regardless of their self-perception. This brings into discussion the third and final aspect in refuting Rand’s false conception of society: interconnectedness.
Every society is a collection of individuals, that’s true. But the interconnection between these individuals in itself, that is, the basis of assembly, so to speak, is an essential feature in defining the nature of this society. This is what enables each of us to be part of several communities at the same time, whether our affiliation to them is optional (that is, according to an individual’s choice of the association that includes him in a community) or imposed (through identities that the individual has no hand in determining). The same person can define himself as part of Saudi society at the same time as he defines himself as being from Sharjah, without these two identities being exclusive or contradictory.
This is also what enables the existence of different bonds between individuals who theoretically belong to the same society, as these bonds arise between them according to what they go through on a daily basis. In other words, society does not consist of individuals with a homogeneous identity who are linked by a single bond that is the basis, but rather many bonds are formed between them that intersect and differ. For example, a society may be defined by the intersection of geographical, religious, sectarian, and ethnic ties between the individuals who are alleged to belong to it, which necessarily means excluding everyone who does not have one of the ties from this society, even if they possess some of them. Perhaps the example that comes to my mind currently is related to my upbringing in a rural environment that distinguished sharply between “the people of the village” and those who were not, despite the intersection of many ties at times between someone from the village and someone who isn’t.
The previous lines were an elaboration on the theoretical problems involved in the concepts of the individual and society, that is, about the individual as a self-contained entity and society as a mere gathering of individuals in a specific spot or something similar. But what does all this have to do with individualism and collectivism?
The truth is that examining the two concepts closely reveals first that they start from the same perception of the individual. I go back here to the two common perceptions about them: individualism is putting the interests of the individual ahead of the group, and collectivism is putting the interests of the group ahead of the individuals. The individual in both conceptions is one, as he is the individual who is born with certain “natural” rights, desires, and interests, and he is the individual who is required to strive towards a specific lifestyle and ideals. In other words, the individual here is a concept that contains two specific perceptions of the relationship between the physical dimension and the subjective dimension on one hand, and the relationship between individuals on the other hand. This concept is what forms the basis of the conflict between the individual and the group in the first place, as it is what gives legitimacy to the conflict of interests between the individual and society in the event that society is considered an obstacle to self-realization and so on.
John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty provides one of the clearest examples of this. Mill opens his book by defining freedom, or rather social freedom, as the limits of power that society can legitimately exercise over the individual. In the third chapter, entitled “Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-being,” the English philosopher distinguishes between the private space in which a person asserts his individuality, and the public space in which others interfere. This public space is the space that requires consideration of others in one way or another. In the first chapter of the book, Mill talks about freedom of thought, expression, etc., as falling within the private sphere, unlike the resulting actions that may cause harm to others (which is what brings it into the public sphere).
I am not here to refute or confirm what the English philosopher believes, and all I want from this brief review is to prove the existence of perceptions and limits to what is private or public as if they existed naturally, that is, as if they were self-evident properties whose limits are linked to physical human existence without any other dimensions. But the truth is that they are subject to socio-economic conditions, as are all philosophical concepts. There is neither “private” nor “public” apart from their location in material historical contexts.
Secondly, an examination of the two concepts reveals that they assume the existence of social interaction regardless of its limits. In other words, the two concepts underlie not only the existence of society, but also the need for it. Even individualism at its most extreme is related to organizing the relationship between the individual and society or reformulating social life according to the aspirations of “individuals,” as it is impossible for one to exist without the other. Of course, the logical result of this relationship between the individual and society is that they interact, that they shape and form each other.
All this is so far insufficient to argue that individualism and collectivism are two sides of the same coin. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that they start from the same perception of the individual and society and that they underlie a specific type of relationship between them, the fact remains that they contradict each other. This alleged contradiction is the point I want to highlight in the remainder of the article. But before that, it is necessary to summarize what I have presented so far:
The popular concepts of individualism and collectivism are based mainly on concepts such as the individual and society, the relationship between them, and the interests of each. At the beginning of the article, I touched on the concept of the individual, trying to clarify some of the problems resulting from ignoring the distinction between the physical/material and the subjective/social dimensions of it. I then quickly went back to the danger of distorting the concept of society and reducing it to one of its components, as this leads, in one way or another, to assuming the formation of absolute bonds between its members, or to considering it to be embodied, so to speak. Regarding the relationship between the two, I tried to move the interaction away from the naive, linear perception that the individual forms society or that society dominates the individual, as the formation and nature of the self is more complex than reducing it to a projection of individual interests onto social interests or vice versa.
I mentioned in the introduction to the article that the contradiction between the two philosophies is an apparent contradiction, meaning that they share the same essence, and I tried to prove this by examining the start of individualism and collectivism from the same concepts and perceptions about the individual, society, and so on. But this assumption also requires proving that the conflict itself is not a real conflict as it is portrayed, but rather conciliatory rather than contradictory. I will provide an illustrative example before elaborating on this idea further. Someone might say that the Roman Empire fell because of the Gothic invasions, while another might say that it fell not so much because of invasions as it was the result of what Paul Kennedy, for example, called “imperial overreach.” It is true that the two opinions differ in the reason, but they agree that there was a fall, an empire, and foreign invasions. In other words, while each concludes something different, they both assert that what happened was really a “fall” (for example, a historian could treat the same events as if they were the rise of the Goths), and that the disasters affected a Roman Empire (and not more or less independent regions), and that the invaders were from outside the borders of this empire in general. I am not here to discuss these assumptions, and what I want is only to represent that disagreement or conflict over the results does not necessarily mean a difference in the premises. In this example, the two speakers share the same framework, starting points, and tools, but differ only in their arrangement.
In the case of individualism and collectivism, I argue that both concepts establish specific conceptions of the individual, society, and the relationship between them, the same conceptions that make their conflict of interests meaningful in the first place. The question here is: Which individual and which society?
I go back to what I mentioned in the introduction: they developed in the context of the dominance of the capitalist system in some regions of Western Europe (and then America) historically, or at least in the context of the social changes that accompanied the economic and political transformations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the emergence of some Western European countries as hegemonic powers. It is the individual included in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789 AD, which grants humans “innate” rights that include freedom, private property, and security. He is also the individual included in the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 AD, and he is the one who makes “the pursuit of happiness” a natural right that man acquires by virtue of his humanity. It is necessary to pay attention here to the establishment of “private property” and “the pursuit of happiness” as innate rights, as what they refer to was formulated within the value/ethical system that was taking shape at the time, which is the same system that was on the ground excluding millions of people from this definition of human. In other words, the perception of the individual’s core essence is tied to the changes and facts that were dismantling previous social patterns and crystallizing new ones. This is part of what the historian Christopher Bailey highlighted in his book, The Birth of the Modern World. Bailey noted that the countries and empires of the 19th century possessed cultural and ideological aspirations that differed from those of the ancient regimes, despite the broad scope of his research across all continents.
The truth is that signs of changes in the concept of the individual and the group were taking shape even at the philosophical level. Here we can cite again the theories of the state of nature as revealed by Locke and Hobbes as examples of this. Regardless of their difference in characterizing man in a pre-social state, so to speak, their starting point is loaded with their contemporary assumptions about the individual. It is worth noting that the word “individual” itself had begun to acquire a different meaning, as before that it was closer to its Latin origin, descending from “individuation.” But this point requires more research than there is room for here, so I will leave it for another time.
In light of the concept of the individual and the social interaction resulting from it, it is self-evident that the individual and society appear to be opposites of each other, and therefore it is natural for there to exist individualism and collectivism. But simply examining the dimensions of the concept of the individual on which all these concepts are based reveals their placement in specific historical contexts accompanying the emergence of the capitalist system in Europe and the power that some individuals were able to possess in light of that. To better understand what it means for a society to be individualistic or collectivistic, we need to consider that these descriptions are fundamentally linked to the pattern of relationships between individuals. These societal characterizations are primarily tied to the hierarchy of power and the many complex, intertwined factors that shape how people interact with one another. The nature of this interaction can be direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious.
Circulating the concepts of individualism and collectivism as if they were transcendent from the socio-economic conditions in which they arose means portraying the historical moment in which they crystallized as absolute and universal. This means molding the world within specific analytical tools and adopting conceptual frameworks as abstract from reality and suitable for analyzing all circumstances. In other words, the contexts in which the two philosophies developed become stations through which all societies pass in the course of their “progress,” which in turn means centralizing these contexts and considering them as a standard for other contexts and phenomena. What I am presenting here aims, even in a simple way, to destabilize this centrality and prove that it is not independent of material historical manifestations.
This does not mean, in any case, that the two concepts are invalid or lack any benefit. One of my goals in this article is to limit their use, that is, to draw boundaries in a way that makes their use feasible at the theoretical level. I bring up the idea of social connections again. If individualism and collectivism crystallized in the context of the dominance of the capitalist system and the social changes resulting from it, it is possible to employ them in a comparative context to examine the effects of these changes in what does not necessarily fall within the scope of the contexts of crystallization. Rather, they can be used to approach these contexts themselves and to uncover relational interactions. Perhaps the majority have heard of the widespread idea of extreme individualism in the United States of America, for example, which refers to the disintegration of families, high divorce rates, marginalization of social bonds, and so on. In citing this idea, “our society” is set against it as an example of a pure collectivist society or something similar. Regardless of the validity of this characterization or the framework on which it is based, individualism and collectivism can be used to examine specific ties. This means examining the reasons that lead us to say that family ties are stronger. We can also explore the foundations by which these ties are defined in the first place. Of course, we should also investigate what each concept (individualism and collectivism) entails and the roles played by perceptions of what is individual and what is social, as well as the priority of their respective spaces. I claim that this approach and others like it are more useful in investigating the intersections between different fields than labeling a society as individualistic or collectivistic, as if these two concepts are original and independent.
The previous lines were an attempt to shed light on the problems involved in the philosophies of individualism and collectivism and on their starting from the same perceptions of the individual and society and the relationship between them. In order to undermine Eurocentric discourses and to resist cultural hegemony, it is necessary to limit the absolute analytical categories used by these discourses and what follows them.
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