The FALL and RISE of COMMUNITY
INTRODUCTION: Recorded history is typically charted through the deeds of great individuals. Complex narratives of conquests, revolutions, discoveries, and accomplishments are encapsulated in the biographies of prominent personages: Atilla the Hun, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, Dante, Leonardo, Goethe, Ben Franklin, Pablo Picasso, Florence Nightingale, Genghis Kahn, and so forth.
While exceptional individuals dominate humanity’s historic annals, ‘individualism’ is a modern concept that is largely absent from ancient and medieval civilizations. It is not until the early nineteenth century that asserting one’s independence and uniqueness, as opposed to contributing to the common good or the collective interests, was introduced.
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859), the French political historian, described the emergence of ‘individualism’ by stating, “Our fathers did not have the word ‘individualism’, which we have coined for our own use, because in their time there was indeed no individual who did not belong to a group and who could be considered as absolutely alone.”
THE RISE OF INDIVIDUALISM (THE FALL OF COMMUNITY): Joseph-Marie de Maistre (1753 – 1821), a French philosopher and diplomat, criticized the Enlightenment’s elevation of individual reason, pursuit of individual interests, and promotion of individual rights. He feared that such values would cause the commonwealth to “crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality.” It was the well-being of society that mattered, not the well-being of the individual.
Individualism in the 19th century was a pejorative term associated with:
– political anarchy
– the destruction of empathy
– the stifling of altruism
– economic exploitation
– the withdrawal of citizens from public life
– weakened society
It wasn’t until individualism migrated to America in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries that freedom, autonomy, and privacy, became esteemed values. This modern social concept was heralded as the means to overcome the ills long associated with socialism, monarchy, and communism of the Old World. “The American Spirit—the love of freedom,—of free industry,—free and unfettered opportunity… guards, protects and encourages competition.”
Individualism in art is epitomized by Abstract Expressionist artists. They blamed the horrific brutality of World War II on the collapse of organizations that had been formed to uphold peace and provide security. Governmental organizations failed to secure peace. Religious organizations failed to prevent atrocities. Judicial organizations failed to uphold justice. Educational organizations failed to cultivate wisdom. Social organizations failed to preserve humanitarian values. This colossal breakdown of organizations provided the impetus for individualism. Without the support of institutions, people were obliged to adopt individualism. The Abstract Expressionists fulfilled this obligation.
As memories of the war faded, cultural attention diverged from individualism to consumerism. Individuality was reduced to selecting mass-produced goods produced by nameless marketers and manufacturers. Abundance and anonymity characterized the necessities, information, and amenities that were consumed.
The interdependent network of buyers and sellers participating within the contemporary economic system is formalized through contracts, alliances, treaties, and trading partners. These impersonal relationships are ‘cooperative’, but they lack the kinship, devotion, and constancy that create ‘community’.
Asserting personal rights, amassing private property, and defending individual freedoms are among the social qualities that are consistent with the contemporary economic and political systems. Sharing resources, pursuing the common good, and upholding collective values are not. Nonetheless, individualism is a mixed blessing. Desirable attributes are indicated by the synonyms ‘independent’, ‘unrestricted’ and ‘autonomous’. However, other synonyms reveal its isolating consequences: ‘disconnected’, ‘alone’, ‘separate’. Cooperation among consumers and producers worldwide has suppressed community, a defining aspect of civilizations across the globe until the modern era.
THE RISE OF COMMUNITY (THE FALL OF INDIVIDUALISM?) Yet community is not extinct. Ecology is asserting the authenticity and necessity of community by documenting the planetary ravages caused by peoples’ frenzy to fulfill their personal desires. Just as individualism was ordained by conditions following World War II, conscious participation in community represents the timely acknowledgement that every living organism belongs, inextricably, to a single holistic system. Humanity’s willingness to relinquish individualism may determine whether Earth’s systems thrive or falter.
As Abstract Expressionist artists once manifested individualism through self-expression, today’s eco artists are manifesting community values by replacing individualized intentions with consideration of the ‘commons’. The ‘self’ has expanded to include geological/botanical/molecular/ biological/aquatic/atmospheric phenomena; mammals/ insects/ marine animals/ microbes/ plants and all other forms of life; substances/processes/forces/fields/systems. By immersing themselves in evolving occurrences, eco artists manifest the abiding revelation of the current era: there can be no ‘mine’ or ‘yours’. There is only ‘ours’.