Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective

by Louis Dumont

Louis Dumont's Essays on Individualism is an ambitious attempt to place the modern ideology of individualism in a broad anthropological perspective. The result of twenty years of scholarship and inquiry, the interrelated essays gathered here not only trace the genesis and growth of individualism as the dominant force in Western philosophy, but also analyze the differences between this modern system of thought and those of other, nonmodern cultures. The collection represents an important contribution to Western society's understanding of itself and its place in the world.

Genres: Anthropology, Politics, Sociology, History, Philosophy, Essays

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

French anthropologist. He was an associate professor at Oxford University during the 1950s, and director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.

Reviews

[Brett Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll never think the same way again

“We have become aware that modern individualism – when seen against the backdrop of other great civilizations – is an exceptional phenomena.” So writes Dumont to begin his book. As we track his arguments, exceptional it is – both the idea of individualism we take for granted, and Dumont’s text. Though he inserts a chapter on Marcel Mauss that reads like Ivory Tower jargon, this volume was first in a series that forced me to doubt fundamentals of my beloved Enlightenment philosophy.

Dumont separates civilizations into “individualistic,” like the modern West, and “holistic,” like the ancients (or modern day Amish, Mennonites, Orthodox Jews). In the former, the individual is paramount, their rights, equality, freedom, liberty. For the later what matters is the community and its member’s duty, responsibility, and virtue that maintains the community. Individualism, says Dumont, springs from its opposite in holism. This mutation of individualism is seen to begin with the Greek Cynics, absorbed and modified by Roman Stoics, absorbed and modified by Christianity. (This whole process may have begun with Buddha, communicated to the Cynics by the Indian Gymnosophists.) Christianity then deposits a form of individualism into the Enlightenment where it takes off with abandon. The old way elevates that side of us that wants belonging (with restraints). The new way elevates that side of us that wants autonomy (with no restraints).

Dumont shows how these early groups devalued the material world (though accommodated it) for the higher plain of a superior spiritual universe. Jesus makes this point repeatedly concerning wealth, the rich, and things (making this one of the great cultural contradictions in the US – an overwhelmingly Christian, yet materialist nation). Dumont terms such figures as “renouncers” who are indifferent or opposed to earthly concerns. To seek ultimate truth they largely forgo social life and its practical distractions. What they value is beyond the reach of events – “an emancipation of the individual through personal transcendence,” writes Dumont. This all gets turned around by Popes meddling in secular affairs and competing with kings. Then comes the Reformation, followed by stern Calvinism’s retreat from mystical and emotional aspects of the old way for down-to-earth correction of the profane world we live in through a Puritan “calling.” What we create, writes Dumont, is “Not a value derived from our belonging in this world, such as our harmony with it, but a value rooted in our difference from it, and the identification of our will with the will of God.” This turns the focus of concern from the spiritual plain to the inferior affairs of everyday life on the ground. It eventuates in making man’s relation to things (whispers of capitalism) more important than man’s relations with other men. One can readily see Enlightenment’s capitalism just around the corner. A really good report on the evolution of individualism from Rome to the Enlightenment. (Dumont goes beyond Enlightenment with his volume, “From Mandville to Marx.”)

[Pierre-Olivier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dumont y présente sont concept de société holiste pré-moderne et individualiste moderne et leur relation dialectique historique. En utilisant la technique comparative de Mauss , il y présente la genèse du mouvement jusqu’à la forme la plus ignoble du totalitarisme nazi. Lecture hardis pour les anthropologues plus que pour les curieux autodidactes comme moi. J’ai aimer mais sans plus.

[Ibrahim · Rating 2 out of 5]

القول بأن هذا الكتاب جيد فقط هو إهانة بأهمية هذا الكتاب والقول بأن هذا الكتاب قابل للفهم هو استخفاف بصعوبته. مشكلة هذا الكتاب بأنه شديد التعقيد لدرجة يجعل من الصعب بمكان على الشخص ان يفهمه. وشخصيا كنت انوي ان اقيمه ب3 نجوم ولكن الفصلين الأخيرين كانا غير مفهومين بالمرة.
يناقش هذا الكتاب قضية الفردانية وتطورها، وهو يشير الى عدد كبير من الأفكار والفلاسفة والمفكرين الذين كان لهم دور في تطور الفرادينة بداية من العصر الوسطى المتعلقة المسيحية وصولا الى هتلر وما بعده.
هذا الكتاب فيه الكثير من الأفكار الصادمة بالنسبة لي خصوصا المتعلقة بروسو وافكار عصر النهضة. والتي غيرت نظرتي في الكثير من الأمور. الفردانية قضية محورية في العصر الحديث، وهي بالطبع تستحق الوقوف عندها، وهو ما جعلني متحمس لقراءة هذا الكتاب، ولكن هذا الكتاب ناقش هذه القضية بعمق وبتعقيد جعل معها فهم الكتاب امر شبة مستحيل.
والمشكلة الاخرى، بأن هذا الكتاب هو جزء من مشروع اضخم للكاتب وهو ما يجعله يشير الى شرح بعض النقاط في كتبه السابقة التي لم اطلع عليها ولم تترجم الى العربية بعد، وهذا خطاء اكبر زاد من ضبابية الافكار.
هذا كتاب مهم في بابه يكاد من المستحيل فهمه، وهو ما جعلني اقيمه بهذا التقيم المنخفض. تجربة شاقة كنت اتمنى لو كانت اقل صعوبة

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce livre je l'avais depuis presque 40 ans! Enfin lu- une réflexion d'un anthropologue spécialiste de l'Inde sur la modernité, qui "aplatit" les hiérarchies et qui fait de la société une réunion d'individus et pas un tout organique comme le concevaient les sociétés traditionnelles. Homme de sa génération, marqué par les catastrophes expériences totalitaires, il les présente comme des perversions de l'individualisme.

[Majdahalmazroei · Rating 1 out of 5]

أول مرة يمر علي كتاب منذ وعيت القراءة لم أفهم منه شيء!
أصريت على المضي في القراءة حتى النهاية لعل وعسى، لكن المحصلة النهاية صفر!
على العموم وضعته على الرف على وعد إن مد الله في الأجل سأعود لقراءته بعد سنوات، فرصة أخرى لأعرف من منا المتسبب في عدم الفهم

[Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, this was a pretty disappointing collection of essays for me. The most useful for my purposes is probably his essay on the ‘emergence of the political category’, which Dumont says is intrinsically linked to the rise in importance of the individual in philosophy. This is a pretty familiar story, in that Dumont is portraying the concept in Western ideology that the rational individual has displaced the idea of a natural order. It is at this point that certain philosophical problems become especially important: 1) how do we account for norms if they are not immanent in the natural order of things?; 2) how do we maintain social control if society does not intrinsically adhere to that same order? The points aren’t really novel anymore, but Dumont does a good job quickly summarizing the emergence of the political and the individual in this essay.

[Andy]

i like it