Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!pacbell!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!udccvax1!chiefdan
From: chiefdan@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Chief Dan Roth)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Individualism - Reality or Myth?
Keywords: myth groups reality
Message-ID: <779@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU>
Date: 9 Mar 88 16:41:48 GMT
Reply-To: chiefdan@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Chief Dan Roth)
Organization: The Lab Rats
Lines: 48
Followup-To:

I'd like to suggest that "Individualism" is a myth.
It has already been pointed to by the jokes about being an individual and
therefore not joining this group.  

What does it meant to be an "individualist?"  To act autonomously from the
groups and people in society which try to influence our behavior?
From the point of view of behaviorism, this is just plain silly.

However, one does not need to be a behaviorist to reject individualism.
We often reject "labeling" because we claim it does not adequately describe who
we are.  However, are we not reducible to a description of oursleves (whether
functional, material, mental, behavioral, spiritual, or some combination)?
Each of these characteristic puts us in a group.

For example, Ronald Reagan is...
1) A Republican
2) A Conservative
3) A Senior Citizen
4) A Former Actor
5) A Victim of Nose Tumors
6) A Male
7) An Actor
8) A tall person
etc, etc, etc.
If you list all these groups to which he belongs, you have a complete
description of Ronald Reagan.  

What I'm saying is that our individuality does not rest separately from the
groups we are classified as belonging to.  Rather, our individuality comes from
the intersection of all these groups.  I am unique because the physical,
social, ethnic, and other groups I am a part of are different from every other
person's collection of groups.

To reiterate:  Our individual selves are defined by the groups that we belong
to, not by separating ourselves from these influences.

(For any philosophy-types, I'm suggesting something similar to the
"rectification of names" - but as a source of identification and not
necessarily as a guide to proper behavior.)

Anyway, think on the above for awhile and please respond.


-- 
ARPA: chiefdan@vax1.acs.udel.edu       "Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalts"
UUCP: ...{ihnp4,uunet}!vax1.acs.udel.edu!chiefdan 
"They nailed him to the cross and they laid him in the ground, but they should
 have known you can't keep a good man down." -- Larry Norman