[MD] Individual v Collective

[david buchanan]

Mike and all:
Nice. I think you're right and it was well said too. It seems to me that 
individuality goes hand in hand with rationality, democracy and human rights 
and the other positive contributions of Modernity.

But I think we have to be careful about exactly what individuality is. (Not 
that you said otherwise.) I was re-reading the section of Lila about 
celebrity as a central organizing principle of the social level recently and 
I wonder if fame could be confused with individuality in some way. I also 
wonder if the long tradition of celebrating certain famous individuals, 
heros and kings and such, really leave much room for a whole different sense 
of self. I mean, I wonder is the emergence of individuality entails a 
substantial shift in consciousness or if it is more like a shift the the 
culture's values in general, one that allowed naturally latent tendencies to 
emerge.

It just seems so easy to relate to the personal emotions depicted in ancient 
literature. Its hard to imagine that pre-Modern people were very different 
from us, you know?

thanks,
dmb


Michael Hamilton said:
>While I agree with (and like) Arlo's point about collective emergence,
>I still want to stick to my (now somewhat rusted) guns about the
>emergence of what we're calling 'intellect' being closely related the
>emergence of _a sense of_ individuality and the sense of the human
>self as an atomised unit. What I'm suggesting is that, rather than the
>4th level being about individuals, it has a great deal to do with
>individuals being aware of themselves _as individuals_, with their own
>unique subjective preferences, beliefs and foibles. Self-awareness.
>
>While it's good to be reminded that we are all tied together by our
>participation in the cultural mythos, we shouldn't dismiss the sense
>of individuality as an illusion, or (to use a phrase from Paul's blog)
>as an entirely maladaptive belief. Sure, it can have maladaptive
>consequences when we forget about the mythos and the vital
>interdependence of all life of Earth. But self-awareness,
>self-consciousness, the sense of individuality, respresents a big
>evolutionary leap from the 'tribal consciousness' that manifests
>itself both in the emergent behavior of ant colonies and in Hitler's
>brutal subordination of the individual to the interests of the
>Volksgemeinschaft (people's community).
>
>I still think it's no coincidence that this self-awareness emerged at
>around the same time as science really took off. I remember hearing
>somewhere that Descartes' over-arching project was to create a 'solid
>philosophical foundation for the sciences'. Whether he succeeded or
>not, I reckon he was the main philosopher in bestowing subjective
>awareness upon members of the Western mythos - and one of the key
>culprits in entrenching SOM so far into the mythos that it has become
>a maladaptive belief.
>
>Regards,
>Mike

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