>Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 15:40:44 -0600 (CST) >From: Tibor R Machan America's Founding Principles and Multiculturalism Tibor R. Machan American Individualism My purpose here is to argue that the multiculturalist position often embraced by contemporary academicians and school administrators is best served within a country that is founded on the principles of political individualism, principles pretty much disti nctive of America's political tradition, of not always its actual public policy. The United States of America is known across the globe mostly for its tradition of individualism. Not that most scholars or diplomats hail this aspect of America. In fact, as we will see shortly, the mainstream academic community has few nice words and many nasty ones to say about individualism. Oddly enough, many who promote multiculturalism join the ranks of the nay-sayers about individualism. I would caution them not to carry on that way, lest they rob themselves of the only legal-political framew ork that can be reasonably hospitable to great varieties of cultural practices within one another's vicinity. Let me first consider what individualism is and what can be said in its support. This is needed so as to indicate why, in the last analysis, individuals best suits human social life. To begin with, individualism isn't an entirely clear cut position. It is mixed up, involving elements that are psychological, political, ontological and normative. As such, what it amounts to the idea that human individuals are politically most important. This is the feature of American political life captured by the Ameri can Founders when they wrote that "all men are created equal; are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights [to] life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness [and] that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving th eir just powers from the consent of the governed." These sentiments pretty much capture the basic principles of political individualism. As such it is a position that distinguishes America and, by now, many other Western societies the legal systems of which give some attention to individual rights and due process of law. Yet we ought to keep in mind that, as Colin Morris observes, "Wester n individualism is...far from expressing the common experience of humanity. Taking a world view, one might almost regard it as an eccentricity among cultures."1 Individualists claim that particular human beings, not some collection of them, are most important, indeed, irreplaceable, where public policy and law are concerned. They believe that a person is not for others, including governments, to use without his or her consent. Everyone is a sovereign being-by nature entitled to self-government, not subject to the rule3/4that is, mastery, oppression, paternalism, tyranny, coercion3/4of others. Everyone must have the final say in what happens in his or her life , within the limits of one's possibilities and the rights of other individuals. What's the Main Alternative? In contrast to individualism, even loosely conceived, collectivism amounts to the view that some grouping of individuals is of central value we ought to pay attention to in politics and law. Here family, tribe, clan, neighborhood, religion, race, sex, n ation, and humanity are candidates as to what takes political priority. Collectivities do things, cause what is worthwhile in human life, are to be blamed for what is wicked, and, most of all, require loyalty from us at every turn. Within this framework , the individual is, basically, a cell in the larger whole of, for example, society or humanity3/4which Karl Marx called "an organic whole" or "organic body."2 Or as August Comte, another advocate of collectivism, put it: This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely.3 Karl Marx thought individuals are but "specie-beings," bits and pieces of the above mentioned organic whole, the way one bee is but a bit of the whole bee hive or one ant is but a bit of a whole ant colony. Marx said, [t]he further back we go into history, the more the individual, and, therefore, the producing individual seems to depend on and belong to a larger whole: at first it is, quite naturally, the family and the clan, which is but an enlarged family; later on, it is the community growing up in its different forms out of the clash and the amalgamation of claims. It is only in the eighteenth century, in 'civil society', that the different forms of social union confront the individual as a mere means to his priva te ends...4 [my emphasis] Anti-Individualism Many of those, moreover, who have an important role in leading the discussion of political ideas in America are anything but individualists. Indeed, one of the most prominently featured intellectual movements today is communitarianism, a social philosoph y whose advocates make a special point of criticizing individualism at every turn. As Harvard political theorist Michael J. Sandel puts it in a recent article for The Atlantic Monthly, the issue for us should not be so much concern for individual liberty and freedom of choice but concern for "belonging, a concern for the whole, a moral bond with the community whose fate is at stake." It is not individual rights the securement of which is vital for a good community. It is government's task to promote "f ormative politics, a politics that cultivates in citizens the qualities of character that self-government requires."5 This. Indeed, is at the central tenet of communitarianism, a movement lead by Robert Bellah and company, authors of Habits of the Heart , Individualism and Community in American Life6 and, especially, Professor Amitai Etzioni, who wrote The Spirit of Community7, to which such notable political figures as Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of Labor Robert Reich belong. The bulk of acad emic and popular books dealing with basic political philosophy champion not individualism but some kind of communitarians and even collectivism. Of course, until very recently half the world was openly committed to developing and advancing perhaps the most overtly collectivist ways of community life, socialism and communism. We will return to this in a moment, For now let's notice that even many who claim to be upholding American ideals actually promote not individualism but the primacy of the family3/4something clearly evident in our recent election campaign rhetoric. There is little doubt that on many fronts there is now a dwindling of the im portance of the initial idea embodied in the Declaration of Independence. That is, prominent folks across the country no longer hold that the public and the individuals who comprise it are one and the same and the true interest of individuals cannot, the refore, conflict with that of the public. It is not believed, any longer, therefore, that no real sacrifice or genuine loss by individuals is needed to secure the general welfare, quite the contrary3/4an individual's flourishing as an individual and soci al being is constitutive of the public welfare. Instead there is a lot of talk about private versus public welfare or individual versus social purpose. Accordingly, some associate individualism with outright bad things. As one prominent scholar, John N . Gray from Oxford University, recently put it: [I]individualist cultures devour their own moral capital and slide into debt-ridden stagnation as individualism corrodes family life and long-term planning and investment.8 Individualism is supposed to makes people careless, mere pleasure seekers, as well as reckless and thoughtless. Furthermore, individualism, for some of its critics, is but a recent invention. Major political theorists across the world, working at prestigious colleges and universities, have argued that only in the 16th century or so did some human beings, members o r mouthpieces for ruling classes, decide that thinking of ourselves as basically individuals, sovereign citizens, consumers, producers, voters, lovers, scholars and so forth was useful. Supposedly thinking-that is, entertaining the myth-that we each matt er individually served the purpose of getting us to work harder-to seek greater prosperity for ourselves and this way to build up the society's wealth. Individualism is seen by these critics as a kind of temporarily useful delusion, a fiction we needed s o as to advance society's prosperity but a fiction, nonetheless. Accordingly, individualism is but a relic of the modern era, to be superseded by what is being called the "post-modern, post-liberal age." It is predicted, by John Gray for example, that "as individualism corrodes,...the nonindividualist market economie s are likely to achieve an ever greater comparative advantage over the declining individualist cultures over the coming decade." As Gray sees it, "the East Asian economies have achieved their spectacular success without accepting any of the Western liber al shibboleths of constitutionalism, individualism, cultural pluralism, universalism, fundamental rights, the idea of progress, and other relics of the Enlightenment."9 And Gray and others note all of this with glee, not dismay, because they do not value these "shibboleths," and do not believe that they deserve to be valued3/4for a great variety of reasons (in Gray's case because he is a skeptic and does not believe anything can be shown to be of real value or any moral principles binding on us). Accord ingly, for anti-individualist, we ought to abandon the idea that individualism applies to all human beings everywhere and content ourselves with its temporary role in our narrow corner of the globe. Multiculturalism What is the currently prominent sentiment, among prominent academic and popular thinkers? At worst, individualism is bad, divisive, corrosive, anti-community, and unfit for human social life. At best, individualist societies are only one of the several equally valid types of human communities. And this is part of the theme of multiculturalism. Broadly put, multiculturalism holds that every culture, however unusual, however offensive to members who do not belong to it, is worthy of respect. This respect is to be granted regardless of the fact that many cultures embrace mutually exclusive social and political principles. Accordingly, it is wrong to condemn some culture as flawed, barbaric or otherwise unworthy since such condemnation must stem from a cultural perspective, one the critic hails from. No one can, in turn, escape hailing from some culture3/4even the so called internationalist or universalistic viewpoint, embraced by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, aren't free of cultural biases, so when they make various moral and political criticisms of certain countries , they are, in fact, practicing a form of cultural imperialism (as representatives of Third World governments made clear at the Human Rights Conference in Vienna, Austrian, in 1993). From this multiculturalist perspective what we must discover or identify is a social-political framework that can make room for all varieties of culture. No preference must be shown to European, African, Latin, Russian, Chinese, US, ancient Greek, or Ara b political or cultural components in such a truly just society. Every culture must be treated fairly, without exception. For example, the educational institutions of a society ought, then, to treat these different cultures neutrally, with no preference given to the products of any of them. I do not wish to go into the multiculturalist thesis in detail3/4it is now part of the intellectual atmosphere of academic life and so most know what it entails. In education it was made the centerpiece of Stanford University's well known controversy abo ut the role that the focus on Western Civilization should have in higher education. It was the subject of controversy at Yale University where a large grant specifically designed to promote studies in Western Civilization was returned to the donor becau se faculty found prominently featuring Western ideas objectionable. Outside academe many school administrations grapple with what they regard as multicultural issues3/4as when multilingual instruction is proposed. Even in sports the matter of whether o ne needs to stand for the American anthem calls forth multicultural, multireligious issues. The creationism versus evolutionary biology debate does no less. Precisely because of its nature as a kind of amalgam of various traditions, there is no easy way to define multiculturalism. We usually mean by the term the idea that every culture is owed equal respect, especially as we try to educate students in a soci ety with a citizenry hailing from families that reach back into a great many different cultures or embrace varied religions. What concern me here is just how such multicultural objectives may or may not square with or relate to individualism. The reaso n is plain enough: America has a distinctly individualist political heritage and many multiculturalists have found it inhospitable to various cultural traditions. Our fist clue as to the relationship between the American polity and multiculturalism comes from the fact that cultural diversity has, in fact, always been part of individualist American society. From the start America was comprised of people from widely different cultures. As J. M. Holley, a college student in 1788, wrote to his brother, "the diversity of dress, manners, & customs is greater in America, than in any other country in the world, the reason of which, is very obvious. It is considered as a country where people enjoy liberty and independence; of course, persons from allmost every nation in the world, come here as to an assylum from oppression; Each brings with him prejudices in favor of the habits of his own countrymen...."10 Clearly ever the more than two centuries of its existence, even while the administrators of the American system haven't been uniformly vigilant about welcoming and making room for members of all cultures, there is hardly any doubt about the diversity of American soci ety, as compared to others. In this connection, consider that nearly every town or village in America is home to diverse races and cultures, whereas this is true only in the cosmopolitan centers of other countries3/4London, Paris, Rome and Vienna. Once out in the countryside, in most societies there is evidence of a good deal of homogeneity and, indeed, cultural exclusivity. Why Is Individualism Important? If individualism had nothing much going for it as a sound way to understand human life, there would probably be nothing much to say for it apart from certain matters of interest to intellectual historians. Its influence might be noted but then we note t he influence of Nazism or Satanism without pretending to like these. I want to make the point here, in the next few minutes, that individualism is actually quite sensible, probably true, as far as an understanding of human social life is concerned. The first thing to note is that individualism in human life is actually quite inescapable. Even to argue about it presupposes it: anyone who advances ideas, who makes arguments and criticizes others for their arguments, anyone who acknowledge that huma n beings do some original things in their lives, have to admit to a significant measure of individualism. It is the creativity of a human being that is the first major clue to our individuality. We make things happen, they do not simply happen to us. We bring novelty into the world, with our artistic, philosophical, commercial, technological, scientific, p oetic, literary and other contributions. These are all evidence of the fact that we individually, even if but minimally, make things happen as (in part) independent beings with a mind of our own. Even when we don't actually do so, we can, and thus we ha ve the essential capacity for individuality, even though we may not exercise it all the time and everywhere. In one sense our individuality is given, at the basic, factual level3/4each person is one being, one who most often is born alone and dies alone, with his or her own unique brain, personality, temperament, history, etc. Our what we might call ontological or metaphysical individuality is clear from the way we cannot make good sense of our identity without reference to the "I" about us, about our personal responsibilities, guilt, achievements, etc. In another sense individuality is an option we arguably o ught to choose, not simply a static fact. Individualism is, in this second respect, a normative issue, just as democracy or friendship-we are free to select or reject them. Our actions, especially at the very personal levels, show that we in fact often c hoose individuality over conformity. Moreover, doing so seems to be imperative if we are to flourish as creative, productive, imaginative living beings. Consider, furthermore, that although everyone is taught a language already in widespread use, even at the earliest stage of a person's life he or she will form original, unique sentences. Poets, of course, and novelists, playwrights and the like all exhi bit a kind of linguistic individualism. Philosophers and others, who argue among themselves, claim, at least implicitly, that what their adversaries should have said is different from what they did say. So they hold their adversaries responsible to act in certain ways, thus implying that others make choices of their own3/4e.g., in what they think and propose3/4and must take responsibility for all this. Communitarians, communists, socialists, tribalist, nationalists, etc., may all believe that the most important and vital aspect of human life is the community, but when they blame the rest of us for failing to accept this, for being wrong not to agree, they are being individualists. What should we say, however, of the fact that in many societies little if any individuality is evident and that individual lives are cheap? What about the fact that ethnic groups are thought of as supreme, that the nation comes first? What of the wides pread absence of the institutional acknowledgment of individuality? The individualist response is nicely put by the late David L. Norton. He noted that individualism is everywhere in potentia: Beneath the accretions of contemporary epochs and cultures a vestige of the original ... intuition endures today ... in the individual's conviction of his own irreplaceable worth. But this small conviction is wholly unequipped to withstand the drubbing i t takes from the world, and from which all too often it never recovers.11 So, despite all the anti-individualism, there is for many of us, in our day to day proceedings, the basic idea that the proper way for us to live is to strike out on our own initiative, with others who choose to join us on theirs, so as to live as decent a human life as we can. In addition to seeing that individuality is basic to our lives, it can also be shown that people's crucial activities, those that flow from their essential humanity, depends upon their individuality. If so, then we have gone some way toward establishin g the significance of individualism for our conception of justice, a conception we can associate with the Founders of the American polity. Indeed, the capacity people have for thinking and for guiding their lives by means of practical reason3/4which is something distinctve about human beings3/4is something they alone can begin, to start to actualize. That this is so is once again affirmed by the manner in which human beings hold each other responsible from the most minuscule to the most complicated bits of conduct3/4from whether they keep holding on to a glass of water or drop it, to whether they take their factories overseas where they ca n hire low wage labor or leave them at home to give jobs to domestic high paid workers. From economic management to international diplomacy, from our discussions about Jack Kaworkian to those about Sadam Hussein, there is this inescapable element of fixi ng personal responsibility. I could go on to list other examples and show that what appears to diverge from my point also fits the case. But let me just remind ourselves of the fact that the point holds, as well, when one evaluates a public address, a philosophy paper, the piloting of an airliner, presiding over the affairs of a university or the chairing of a university department. The practice of looking to individuals for assessing human conduct is global3/4the mainland Chinese leaders blame President Clinton for granting visas to Taiwanese leaders and the members of Greenpeace denounce American company executives for polluting the environment. Individualism and Multiculturalism Having now indicated what makes individualism a very plausible candidate for the best way to understand ourselves and, therefore, to conceive of the basic features of a just human community, let us now turn to the central question of this presentation. W hat kind of legal, political and economic order is likely to be most hospitable to a society in which some of the saner attitudes toward widely varying cultures are to prevail? I wish to propose that such an order would be far more individualistic than m ost multiculturalists suspect. The reason multiculturalists do not generally accept this point is that they tend to look upon individualism as just another cultural perspective, a product of Western Culture. According to them to admit that individualist political systems are really best for preserving cultural diversity is to sanction cultural imperialism, after all. One place where the soundness of my proposal is clearly suggested is by way of the terms and activities what of are called human rights watch organizations, such as Amnesty International. These find invoking the near-individualist framework of human righ ts well received across the globe, especially among ordinary people if not governments. It is, furthermore, the underlying notion of individual human rights that has over the last two centuries excited most ordinary folks across the world about the United States of America. The political leadership of American is understood to consists most ly of its championing the protection of the basic human rights of all individuals to life, liberty and property. This, as most people seeking to emigrate to the USA know well enough, never mind whether they can fully articulate the point, means that in s system of which principles there would be a chance for any individual, from nearly any culture, to embark upon living a reasonably successful life. It is this point that has been referred to, by the Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick, as "the framework for utopias," experiments of all kinds in how men and women can and should live. Multiculturalism and Collectivism In contrast what do we get from collectivist systems? Well, we have seen two such systems, National and Soviet socialism, demonstrate just how miserable life is when the individual is officially dispensed with and, instead, the welfare of some collectiv e is placed before us as the most important objective to serve. Hitler was an explicit collectivist, championing the German Volk or people as a whole, not the individuals who comprised the citizenry of Germany. Marx, as we have already noted, championed humanity as an whole, with individuals comprising little more that this whole's body parts. Tatyana Tolstaya observes, in an essay written for The New Republic magazine shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, that according to collectivism, According to [collectivists] "the people'' is a living organism, not a "mere mechanical conglomeration of disparate individuals.'' This, of course, is the old, inevitable trick of totalitarian thinking: "the people'' is posited as unified and whole in its multiplicity. It is a sphere, a swarm, an anthill, a beehive, a body. And a body should strive for perfection; everything in it should be smooth, sleek, and harmonious. Every organ should have its place and its function: the heart and brain are more important than the nails and the hair, and so on. If your eye tempts you, then tear it out and throw it away; cut off sickly members, curb those limbs that will not obey, and fortify your spirit with abstinence and prayer.12 What about smaller collectivities? Do these fare any better? Bosnia-Herzegovina is only the most recent example of what happens when the welfare and success of ethnic groups are placed at the top of the list of priorities for people to serve. In the A frican country of Burundi, as in Somalia, people are sacrificed by the thousands for the sake of tribal supremacy. In South Africa, until recently, white Afrikaners, as a group, placed themselves above members of other races and treated them with nearly total disregard for their well being and sovereignty. In the Northern Irish vs. British conflict children and innocent bystanders are sacrificed for the greater good of religious, regional or some other collective group. Even in the United States of America we find that the heritage of individualism has given way to a clamoring for collective identity. Blacks are supposed to live for African-American emancipation and individuals who do not conform are denounced. Women, especially in the academic community, are supposed to toe the line of certain versions of feminism lest they betray their sisterhood. Native Americans are lumped into one horde by many shallow historical references, as if there never existed individual, diverse persons on the continent Columbus encountered when he sailed to look for China. We have Hispanics, Canadians, members of labor unions, teachers, artists, lawyers, farmers, and hundreds of other groups identifying themselves as some super entity, deserving of special loyalty and service, so that whereas initially our government was supposed to serve sovereign individuals, these days it tends more in the direction of distributing some mythical collective wealth among all these special interest grou ps. What is noteworthy in connection with this trend is that it is in the United States of America in particular and in Western countries more than elsewhere that diverse communities3/4linked culturally, ethnically, racially, religiously and so forth3/4are l ikely not only to flourish but to co-exist peacefully. Some final Concerns About Pluralism One major English political philosopher who has worried a great deal about the compatibility of individualist Western liberalism with multiculturalism is Sir Isaiah Berlin. Berlin and others are concerned about how one can promote the political system o f individual liberty, one which makes value pluralism more likely than any other polity, even while no conception of the good human life is given superior status in the society. They are concerned that it may be liberalism's political neutrality as betwe en different, often culturally bound, approaches to living a good human life, that undermines its soundness. They pose the question, "How could one system by valuable for so many others without contradiction, namely, without elevating liberalism to a hi gher level than other value systems3/4that is, without the dreaded cultural imperialism?" The individualist answer is that we may have to give up on political egalitarianism in order to retain the possibility of value or cultural pluralism. May what is important to cultural diversity is not political. Maybe what makes cultures what they are is their music, art, religion, styles of cuisine and dress, language, and other no-political matters. It is not crucial, therefore, to maintain egalitarianism about coordinating legal systems even while the commitment to cultural pluralism is sound. As Professor Michael Walzer of Harvard University has observed, in his critical assessment of this issue, If value pluralism is true ... and if only liberal minded men and women can fully recognize this truth, then liberalism may just possibly have a different status than other values and ways of life. And how can we say anything about this status if we are committed to value pluralism? Perhaps, if we can't say anything, we had best be silent.13 Actually, we need not remain silent. We can hold, with the American political tradition and the founders of the American republic that there is a superior way of political life, namely, one in which individuals have the right to pursue their happiness wh ile respecting the equal rights of all other individuals to their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Accordingly, while a given mode of social-political life is seen as superior to others, all modes personal, social, professional, religious and oth er particular or special forms are free to be pursued provided those who pursue them do not impose them on unwilling others. The issue of which among these is best need not be of general concern, only of concern to the individuals who are making their da y to decisions about what to do. Accordingly, for example, the Amish people in the United States of American pursue their own version of happiness-a life devoted to religious pursuits-as do the Hare Krishna, the followers of the Reverend Moon and, indeed, the members of the approximatel y 1200 different religious denominations and several more hundred secular groups. The one common requirement by which all must live is to also let live, as it were. That is by no means something simple. In a multiculturalist society one may have to put up with some practices on the part of one's neighbors that are difficult to tolerate, let alone accept. But acceptance is not the issue, only tolerance. If a group of Americans hailing from Spain want to purchase a park where they will practice bull fi ghting, the neighboring animal rights folks would have to tolerate even if they do not accept it. The only means available for them to bring about change is (a) to exhort or (b) to demonstrate in common terms that animals like humans do indeed have right s, thus bringing about a change of the basic principles of the multicultural society such that animal abuse no longer counts as a culturally variable practice. This individualist approach to socio-political arrangements will not, of course, suit everyone. The animal rights people, for example, will be unhappy with the situation as described above. And there will be others who follow certain doctrines about po litical life who cannot be appeased this way. If they act on their convictions, their conduct will have to be treated as criminal because it constitutes an infringement of individual rights. Take socialists, for example. They could live in a voluntary commune, share the wealth, follow the principles "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Many of them, however, would find this quite unsatisfactory. They hold, as we have already learned from Tatyana Tolstaya, that "'the people' is posited as unified and whole in its multiplicity." Accordingly, they could well take it upon themselves to attempt to forcibly unify the people, something that an individualist socie ty would rightfully construe as illegal, criminal. If there is anything at all that unites the various ideal ways of life, regardless of the particular ideals in question, it is the requirement that the person who lives in line with them does so to a significant degree on his or her own initiative. This is why individualism3/4and liberalism, its political expression3/4are better candidates for being universal frameworks for human association. They are basic norms of interpersonal social living. As Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl put the matter: ...Liberalism, then, is not designed to either promote, preserve, or imply one form of flourishing over another. It is not thereby completely open ended, however. Liberalism does prevent "forms of flourishing" which inherently preclude the possibility o f taking place along side of other diverse forms of flourishing....14 The Founders of the American republic seem to have been more or less aware of this, probably because they were aware of the great differences, legitimate or not, between the way citizens of American would pursue the morally good life for human beings. A ny and all of the limitations placed on cultural diversity in the American political framework3/4or some consistent version of it in which cultural imperialism is kept to the minimum3/4are arguably inescapable ones for any community that would enhance the morally good life for human beings as such. Individualism is the best hope for all Benign Cultures In conclusion I wish only to reiterate a point made earlier. The individuality of human beings seems to be undeniable-even as we debate the matter it surfaces relentlessly in our creative thinking, the way we forge new or reworked arguments in discussin g the issue. This isn't, of course, recognized by everyone, so the dispute will continue. Accordingly, those who would advocate an anti-individualist perspective have some fancy footwork to perform to deny the fundamentality of the individuality of human life. This individuality, however, does not imply isolation or some kind of fake self-sufficiency for individuals. The values championed by Professor Sandel, what he calls republic virtues, are fully compatible with it, provided nothing is coercively imposed on any citizen. Cooperation, sociability, fellow feeling are, of course, just as much a part of human life as is individuality. Some individualists forget this and make the mistake of issuing hyperbolic slogans about marching to different drummers, etc. , that are literally false, although perhaps understandable as ways to call attention to the importance of the individual human being. No one can march to his or her own exclusive drummer3/4drumming is something that emerged in the context of social life , with other performers also playing along. Yet, the mistakes of the over-enthusiastic individualists are not nearly so harmful and tragic as are those of people who would compromise the individuality of human life by lumping us all into some group, whether we choose this or not, for whom '"the peo ple'' is posited as unified and whole in its multiplicity,' who would treat us as a hive or swarm, not as being irreplaceably unique in some essential respects. I want then to stress, in conclusion, that however much individualism is dismissed by some as just another bias of Western culture, it is actually more of a humanistic philosophical discovery and ethico-political affirmation that happens to have been mad e, although not exclusively, in the Western world. Every human being, anytime and everywhere, would do (or would have done) better if his or her community embraced the insight of individualism and paid attention to every person's sovereignty and possessi on of the right to freedom and independence. Only if this is fully realized, can human beings begin to embark on a truly self-responsible form of life, including in each others company, as well as continue to practice and further develop their unique cultures and customs in peace. While such full r ealization is not highly probable, it is certainly within our power to clearly articulate it and strive for it with greater vigilance than we are doing. The fear that seems to motivate many about individualism, namely, that it leaves the sociability of human life neglected, or that it encourages crass self-centeredness, should not be allowed to squelch the essential truth of the doctrine, which is that i n human life the initiative and, thus, the liberty of the individual are central ingredients of decency and flourishing. Endnotes: 1 Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual 1050-1200 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 2. 2 Karl Marx, Grundrisse (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1971), p. 33. 3 August Comte, Cathechisme positiviste (Paris: Temple de l'humanite, 1957). 4 Op. cit., Marx, Grundrisse, p. 17. 5 Michael Sandel, "America's Search for a New Public Philosophy," The Atlantic Monthly, March 1996, p. 58. For related critiques of individualism, see Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit, eds., Communitarianism and Individualism (New York: Oxford Univers ity Press, 1992). 6 Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community (New York: Crown Publishing Co., 1993). 7 Robert Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985). 8 John Gray, "From Post-Modernism to Civil Society," Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 10 (1993), p.44. 9 Ibid. 10 Quoted in "Endpaper," The New York Times Book Review (November 5, 1995), p. 46. 11 David L. Norton, Personal Destinies, A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. x. 12 Tatyana Tolstaya, "The Grand Inquisitor," The New Republic, June 9, 1992, p. 33. 13 Michael Walzer, "Are There Limits to Liberalism?" Review of John Gray's Isaiah Berlin, The New York Review of Books, October 19, 1995, p. 28. 14 Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl, Liberalism Defended: The Challenge of Post-Modernity (forthcoming).