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Foundation series : Enlightened morality (II)

© Francois Tremblay

Individualism in action means that you are responsible for your own opinions, knowledge, and values. Instead of relying on idols and authorities, we use our own capacities to rely on the ultimate exterior authority: reality. An individualist relies on himself and his own conclusions, and to do so, he must have the honesty to face reality and speak the truth, the sense of justice to evaluate his ideas objectively, and the sense of responsibility to admit his errors.

However, this can be made into a parody. A person who obsesses about individualism becomes ego-filled and comes to consider himself as the center of all things. As we know from spirituality, this is a false understanding. The self is no more important than any other fact of reality. As such, the quest for individualism must evolve in a better integrated view.

There are three stages in acceptance of an idea: the first stage, which is pre-rational, the second stage, which is reactionary, and the third stage, which transcends the dichotomy posits by the second stage. This is true, I think, of all rational ideas.

In this case, the first stage pre-individualism, the second stage is the reactionary individualist, which posits a confrontation between the individual and others, and the third stage, which understands the unity of social relationships and transcends that false dichotomy.

When one gets in this third stage, that of integration, individualism is no longer asserted but rather taken for granted. The individual no longer needs to defend himself from the exterior. Thus compassionate action comes naturally.

We can compare the state of a second stage individualist like that of various minority collectivists, like "the blacks", "the homosexuals", or "the atheists". Due to social opposition, a person who has a minority attribute, and is allowed to express that attribute, will usually act in a reactionary way.

He will consider himself to be part of a "community", and organize his actions and values around that single attribute that he possesses, even going so far as to equate himself with that single attribute. The "black community", or the "homosexual community", or the "atheist community" will become the standard, the final arbiter of value.

Of course, we know that this is unhealthy, and in a meaningful sense, incorrect. A person is not defined by a single attribute, even if that attribute makes him more likely to be persecuted. No one is "a black" or "a homosexual" or "an atheist", we are all individuals who happen to have a number of attributes, which include having a certain skin colour, or sexual orientation, or position on religion.