daemu
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005, 06:27 PM
these days it has become very trendy among contemporaries, and especially amid the younger generation, to reject everything which doesn’t appeal to their insubordinate and rebellious worldviews, and so everything that has an unadventurous tone to it is smugly ridiculed as somehow ‘outdated’, not modern and therefore also not ‘cool’. this day people have given a name to the idea under which they parade against convention and healthy moral sense – rationalism.
on of the most promising offspring of rationalism is individualism.
... lets consider the following: it is regular for youth to disrespect the elderly, many of whom fought in a war to keep the nation in which the former were born into free under the rationale that these elderly people fought for themselves and their own families, and not for ‘me’, albeit in a strict sense they are correct in saying this as no reasonable person can suggest that the soldiers who fought, for example, in the second world war were fighting for every individual who today lives in their country. another argument the individualists provide is that in case the former generation had fought for the life and freedom of the current generation indirectly – that is to say, they fought for the romantic idea of “future generations”, which was often the case in Europe, than the individualists retort in their usual sterile reasoning, saying that this vision of “future generations” was itself inherently tainted by formerly fashionable subjective representations of these “future generations”, who are now supposed to embody and continue fighting for the ideas of their predecessors. but this of course is not in harmony with the self-centred individualistic worldview that every man has the right to pursue his own personal vision irregardless of his ancestors and generally do whatever makes one’s self happy.
a thing no individualist will ever disagree with however, and one thing that i think they actually take pride in, is the fact that their worldview is based on hedonism. under the guidance of rationalism the idea of hedonism becomes permissible on the grounds that no ‘rational’ critisism of it as such is possible. hence, working on a project that will only come to fruition in generations to come would be aberrant to the individualist since he will have no chance to enjoy the fruits of his own work today and now.
i find the most penetrating and at the same time the most concise critique of individualism to be Nietzsche’s “Human, All Too Human”, although admittedly having nothing to do with individualism per se. you may find the following quote relevant and interesting:
Disbelief in the "monumentum aere perennius." ["A memorial lasting longer than bronze (Horace)."] — One crucial disadvantage about the end of metaphysical views is that the individual looks his own short life span too squarely in the eye and feels no strong incentives to build on enduring institutions, designed for the ages. He wants to pick the fruit from the tree he has planted himself, and therefore no longer likes to plant those trees which require regular care over centuries, trees that are destined to overshade long successions of generations. For metaphysical views lead one to believe that they offer the conclusive foundation upon which all future generations are henceforth obliged to settle and build. The individual is furthering his salvation when he endows a church, for example, or a monastery; he thinks it will be credited to him and repaid in his soul's eternal afterlife; it is work on the eternal salvation of his soul.
Can science, too, awaken such a belief in its results? To be sure, its truest allies must be doubt and distrust. Nevertheless, the sum of indisputable truths, which outlast all storms of skepticism and all disintegration, can in time become so large (in the dietetics of health, for example), that one can decide on that basis to found "eternal" works. In the meanwhile, the contrast between our excited ephemeral existence and the long-winded quiet of metaphysical ages is still too strong, because the two ages are still too close to each other; the individual runs through too many inner and outer evolutions himself to dare to set himself up permanently, once and for all, for even the span of his own life. When a wholly modern man intends, for example, to build a house, he has a feeling as if he were walling himself up alive in a mausoleum.
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Human, All Too Human” [1., 22]
thus the individualist never thinks beyond his own person; he doesn’t have an interest in looking further than his own immediate mundane desires as he is unable to do so because the source out of which he draws his energies, rationalism, forbids it.
any thoughts? :)
on of the most promising offspring of rationalism is individualism.
... lets consider the following: it is regular for youth to disrespect the elderly, many of whom fought in a war to keep the nation in which the former were born into free under the rationale that these elderly people fought for themselves and their own families, and not for ‘me’, albeit in a strict sense they are correct in saying this as no reasonable person can suggest that the soldiers who fought, for example, in the second world war were fighting for every individual who today lives in their country. another argument the individualists provide is that in case the former generation had fought for the life and freedom of the current generation indirectly – that is to say, they fought for the romantic idea of “future generations”, which was often the case in Europe, than the individualists retort in their usual sterile reasoning, saying that this vision of “future generations” was itself inherently tainted by formerly fashionable subjective representations of these “future generations”, who are now supposed to embody and continue fighting for the ideas of their predecessors. but this of course is not in harmony with the self-centred individualistic worldview that every man has the right to pursue his own personal vision irregardless of his ancestors and generally do whatever makes one’s self happy.
a thing no individualist will ever disagree with however, and one thing that i think they actually take pride in, is the fact that their worldview is based on hedonism. under the guidance of rationalism the idea of hedonism becomes permissible on the grounds that no ‘rational’ critisism of it as such is possible. hence, working on a project that will only come to fruition in generations to come would be aberrant to the individualist since he will have no chance to enjoy the fruits of his own work today and now.
i find the most penetrating and at the same time the most concise critique of individualism to be Nietzsche’s “Human, All Too Human”, although admittedly having nothing to do with individualism per se. you may find the following quote relevant and interesting:
Disbelief in the "monumentum aere perennius." ["A memorial lasting longer than bronze (Horace)."] — One crucial disadvantage about the end of metaphysical views is that the individual looks his own short life span too squarely in the eye and feels no strong incentives to build on enduring institutions, designed for the ages. He wants to pick the fruit from the tree he has planted himself, and therefore no longer likes to plant those trees which require regular care over centuries, trees that are destined to overshade long successions of generations. For metaphysical views lead one to believe that they offer the conclusive foundation upon which all future generations are henceforth obliged to settle and build. The individual is furthering his salvation when he endows a church, for example, or a monastery; he thinks it will be credited to him and repaid in his soul's eternal afterlife; it is work on the eternal salvation of his soul.
Can science, too, awaken such a belief in its results? To be sure, its truest allies must be doubt and distrust. Nevertheless, the sum of indisputable truths, which outlast all storms of skepticism and all disintegration, can in time become so large (in the dietetics of health, for example), that one can decide on that basis to found "eternal" works. In the meanwhile, the contrast between our excited ephemeral existence and the long-winded quiet of metaphysical ages is still too strong, because the two ages are still too close to each other; the individual runs through too many inner and outer evolutions himself to dare to set himself up permanently, once and for all, for even the span of his own life. When a wholly modern man intends, for example, to build a house, he has a feeling as if he were walling himself up alive in a mausoleum.
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Human, All Too Human” [1., 22]
thus the individualist never thinks beyond his own person; he doesn’t have an interest in looking further than his own immediate mundane desires as he is unable to do so because the source out of which he draws his energies, rationalism, forbids it.
any thoughts? :)