Abstract
Individualism belongs to the core of Western evaluative logic. This paper aims to determine what exactly now constitutes individualism as an often used cultural discourse and, more importantly, how its content varies depending on different semantic constellations. A systematic classification of different possible individualistic types of evaluation is proposed, which can eventually serve as a heuristic tool for further cultural analysis. The paper starts with identifying two essential meaning dimensions of freedom/control: (1) a self-dimension and (2) a society-dimension. Second, it explores how combinations of these different dimensions of meaning yield four different ‘semantic fields’, which all fall under the general heading of individualism, namely liberal, egalitarian, radical, and subjective individualism. These different types are described based on illustrations stemming from political, cultural, and philosophical domains.
Highlights
People are evaluative beings: we do act upon the world, but simultaneously seek to interpret, classify, and vindicate these actions (Sayer, 2011)
This is certainly not farfetched seeing that notions such as individuality or autonomy are ingrained in our juridical, political, and economic system, and provide the cultural foundations for contemporary modes of social control (e.g. Rose, 1989; Foucault, 2008; Elchardus and De Keere, 2010)
I propose a multidimensional reading of individualism by focussing on two major meaning dimensions of freedom and control, namely a self-dimension and a society-dimension
Summary
People are evaluative beings: we do act upon the world, but simultaneously seek to interpret, classify, and vindicate these actions (Sayer, 2011). I propose a multidimensional reading of individualism by focussing on two major meaning dimensions of freedom and control, namely a self-dimension and a society-dimension These two dimensions combined eventually render a categorization of four different types of individualism: liberal, egalitarian, subjective, and radical individualism. These are described by giving examples stemming from different cultural domains, such as social movements, politics, ethics, and the arts. The latter step is not carried out with the intention of promoting more taxonomical analyses of ideas but to create a comprehensive heuristic instrument that will allow us to interpret and analyse individualistic evaluations in a more systematic and relational way
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