Contemporary World Individualism

The modern world is dominated by an astounding amount of humans, yet unfortunately, a significantly lower count of individual people. An individual is someone who sees the world through their own eyes, thinks their own thoughts about it, and disregards any outside attempts to sway their opinions. These innovative people allow society as a whole to progress, and a lack of them dramatically slows change, be it good or bad, leading to a stagnant world in which humanity rejects all change and progress out of fear. This hypothetical is silently creeping into our reality today, as the current societal machine quietly disallows many once open paths

“We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, one, indivisible and forever.”(19) The leaders of the society in Anthem enforce the idea of all men being one, true equality where all work for the good of their fellow men. In this society no one is capable of being hurt by another's pride or abilities. All people are given the numbing safety of having no talents, no favoritism, and no ego. “Preach Selflessness. Tell a man that he must live for others.”(The Soul of a Collectivist) By being one and the same, everyone is promised a sense of equality, something mankind fights over relentlessly.

Individualism, while indeed centered on the individual, is more accurately described as the changing and shifting relationship between the individual and society. The pursuit of self-gratification and preservation forms only a minute part of this concept. Promotion of personal liberties and control in the various aspects of an individual’s life and situation has been a major part of American history since its very dawn.

A collective society is the subjugation of an individual to a group. In Anthem, a dystopian piece of literature written by Ayn Rand, represents a collective society. The novel is about a young man named Equality 7-2521. His intelligence helps him through his journey in discovering ‘new’ discoveries in a society where the society is put before an individual, a collective society. In the novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, the process of establishing a collective society is the removal of love, knowledge, and individualism.

The idea of conformity is to eliminate individualism and to unite the society together, making it a safer place for the citizens to live, and develop in. A place that has no war, no hunger and no pain, where citizens create strong bonds between each other. The Giver written by Lois Lowry represents the idea of conformity in the society where they try to keep everyone the same as each other by following the same rules and trying to avoid having people stand out by receiving daily pills to lose the feeling of inclination between each other.

Now that we know the textbook definitions of these words, let 's bring them into perspective in the setting of Anthem and “The Soul of an Individualist.” Prometheus is an egoist, but not in an unpleasant way. He has lived in a collectivist government for his whole life, this government taught that you could only be happy if you were working for your brothers. They also believed that the group mattered more than each individual in it. During the story, Prometheus begins to realize that individualism is not a bad thing. Individualism is the principle of being independent and self-reliant. He believes that he, himself, matters individually, not just the group as a

The utopian society in the Brave New World can be compared and contrasted between our contemporary society using individualism, community and the human experience. The fictional novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932, is about a utopian society where people focus stability and community over individuality and freedom, but an outsider is introduced to intervene with the operation of the utopian state. In the contemporary world, people need to show individuality in their communities in order to survive, and to be human, one must show emotion, which is the opposite in the Brave New World.

Individualism is being independent and only relying on yourself. Many of these thinkers valued hard work and education. Nicholas Copernicus stated, “I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what others will think

“An individualist is a man who says: I will not run anyone’s life nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself nor sacrifice anyone to myself.” - Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand believed that collectivism is a hardship. She believed every man should be an individualist and live for themselves and no one else. This vision was portrayed through her book Anthem that featured a young boy named Equality 7-2521. Equality lives in a society that suppresses individualism and raises the “brotherly contribution and need” above anything else. “The Anthem” , a song by the pop punk band Good Charlotte, is about a young man that wants to be nothing like the other people in his world. They all are just like one another and he wants to break away from this. There are many similarities and differences between Anthem by Ayn Rand and “The Anthem” by Good Charlotte.

True freedom is commonly defined as absolute choice; whether it is in thought, actions or speech, freedom is an individual’s ability to take control of their lives and enables the human experience. Civilization views freedom as an ideal, yet the means of achieving it and whether or not freedom is truly achieved remains ambiguous. There are often individuals in civilized society who struggle and believe themselves to be free after a hard earned victory against oppression. Yet, the implications of maintaining a civilized social structure upon freedom is often overlooked. Many individuals view themselves as free from a subjective standpoint, although true freedom has an absolute meaning. Having true freedom would suggest the ability to develop independently as an individual, yet it becomes evident that in the societies of Brave New World and the Great Gatsby, the existence of social structure prevents true freedom from ever existing.

says that “the human society is essentially a series of market relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property” (Macpherson, 1). John Locke (1632-1704), another eminent political thinker based his notion of individualism on the premise of theological justification. He views all individuals as being created equal in the eyes of the creator and therefore God reserves the right to ownership of all the individuals. And therefore it becomes incumbent on the part of an individual to recognise the right and freedom of the other individual . The basic essence of his theory of individualism is that an individual is expected to live within the confines of a social

Dodgeball; the greatest elimination game on Earth. What would you think if you could never play it again? I, for one, would be crushed that could never play it again. Many principals in Elkton, Maryland banned dodgeball because they believed it was inappropriate. They removed it from the P.E. curriculum just recently. I believe that dodgeball shouldn’t be taken out of the curriculum because it helps them be more aware, teaches them about life, and it leads to more games being taken away.

In the article “How American Family Life Is Different” by Andrew Cherlin, a professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University states that people tend to believe that a nation should be “consistent” and “unified.” However, he also states that culture is inconsistent where people can choose between how they would like to see and view life specifically towards how Americans deal with the cultural model of marriage and the cultural model of individualism (Miller-Cochran, Susan, Roy Stamper, and Stacey Cochran. An Insider 's Guide to Academic Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader.). Cherlin uses a metaphor such as a toolkit to describe how people pick and choose how they want their relationship to be and we can identify this with utilitarian individualists, people who choose to advance their self interest with effort within society and expressive individualists, are people are trying to improve themselves as a person in order to be happy ("Individualism and Moral Commitment: Robert Bellah Et Al." Individualism and Moral Commitment:

Individualistic culture is a culture where people cherish liberty and privacy and often trust their personal ability to emerge victorious and successful in their endeavors. Whereas, in a collectivist culture, people emphasizes the collective need of the society in general. America is a typical example of an individualistic culture, while Japan exemplifies a collectivist cultural characteristic. McLean (2010). The fundamental differences between an individualistic cultural system and collectivist cultural system is that people raise in an individualistic culture value freedom and they trust that with determination and perseverance, they are well able to wither the storm of life. This ultimately is how they view the world while in a collectivist culture; every focus is on the country. Comparatively, while an individualistic culture strive to achieve

Though different, collectivism and individualism both have value within their contexts and show the values of their people. Collectivism values the individual’s membership and participation in the group as a whole. Contrarily, individualism esteems the individual’s ability to separate himself from the group and think for himself. Though often not recognized, both of these dimensions can exist within a society and add depth to its