Counterfeit individualism

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 11 months ago to Culture
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"Rebelliousness or unconventionality as such do not constitute proof of individualism. Just as individualism does not consist merely of rejecting collectivism, so it does not consist merely of the absence of conformity."

“Counterfeit Individualism” by Nathaniel Branden, in The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden.

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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The conditions may be right but it still takes an individual decision. Any other standard would be tantamount to the draft system which enforces a voluntary oath - which isn't voluntary and therefore meaningless.
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, that misses the point. Independence is an aspect of rationality. The counterfeit individualist is not a kind of individualist, he is contrary to it. This isn't a matter of rationalistically relating floating abstractions within a broader class in the name of logic; it's about the conceptual meaning.

    Read the brief 3+ page chapter on “Counterfeit Individualism” by Branden in Ayn Rand's anthology The Virtue of Selfishness, but more fundamentally, read her own explanation of the virtue of independence in the opening chapter, "The Objectivist Ethics", and Leonard Peikoff's systematic, comprehensive presentation in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 11 months ago
    In other words, rejecting collectivism and absence of conformity are necessary but not sufficient conditions for individualism?
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