R: Abolish the Individual

Throughout history, conservatism has been characterized by the battle between an individualist impulse and a collectivist impulse. Plato valued the polis, the communal unit that defined Greek life, above the individual, arguing that virtue can only be sought in a carefully structured community. Aristotle famously described man as “a political animal,” a phrase more literally translated as “a creature of the polis.” Even Stoicism emphasized interconnectedness and striving after virtue within community. 

The Classical emphasis on the collective largely prevailed until the Enlightenment. John Locke, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill lauded individual liberty as the highest good. For these men, government is only good insofar as it allows individuals maximum liberty, while an infringement of liberty is the highest offense. I invite the body to consider: does the principle of individual liberty promote greed and selfishness, or is it a needed antidote to tyrannical government? Perhaps the affirmative may see fit to mention that this principle has given rise to anti-conservative ideologies like libertarianism and utilitarianism. 

Today, Smith and Mill have the upper hand over Plato and Aristotle. Twenty-first century America is home to perhaps the most individualistic culture in world history. “Have it your way,” says the Burger King commercial. “You deserve it!” whispers Mercedes-Benz. Dr. Pepper calls its customers “one of a kind.” The affirmative may point to this individualistic impulse as the root of many of our culture’s besetting sins. Abortion advocates use the rhetoric of individual liberty to justify the murder of the unborn: her body, her choice. Income inequality is, in the end, a product of individual greed. In media and law, the needs of the family are neglected at the expense of the needs of the individual. 

But what made our nation great other than rugged individualism? The negative may argue that America is more prosperous and more free because individuals are encouraged to think and act apart from the collective. Ralph Waldo Emerson embodies the American dislike of conformity: “envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide.” Anti-conservative ideologies like communism and socialism have historically emphasized the collective over the individual, allowing dictators like Stalin and Castro to justify atrocities in the name of improving life for the collective. Some may argue that the early Christians introduced

individualism to the ancient world when they insisted upon the sanctity of each human life based upon the Imago Dei. 

Is individual liberty essential to human flourishing or deadly to it? Which is preferable, the polis or the person? Will you forge your own path or join the collective? 

Further Reading: 

• Aristotle, Politics I.2.10 (c. 335 B.C.). 

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (1841). 

• T. S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock’, II (Poetry for Ordinary Time),” (1934). A brief excerpt from one of Eliot’s more obscure liturgical works, in the introduction to which he dropped the awesome line, “I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature, and a royalist in politics.” 

• Seth D. Kaplan, “The Cure to Our Social Breakdown” in First Things (2023). I recommend this article especially for an analysis of place-based communities in a hyper-individualistic world. The article mainly discusses Catholic and Orthodox Jewish communities, so I feel obligated to add that Protestant churches (my home church of West Newbury Congregational, for instance) can also be home to thriving place-based communities.