History of the concept of the individual and individuality in Western society
This is a passionate and very important subject.
At the dawn of Renaissance, the concept of the individual began to emerge across western society.
Jacob Burckhardt , the great historian of the Renaissance in his book “la civiltà del rinascimento in Italia”, (Renaissance civilization in Italy) provides us with a first modern definition of the would be “individual” : “ During the middle-ages the veil covering human souls was a cloth of faith, biases, ignorance and illusions…in so far as the human being was considered only as belonging to a race, a population, a party, a corporation, a family or any other forms of “community” . For the first time, it was Italy that has broken this veil and dictated the “objective” study of the State and other worldly things. This new way of considering reality aside, it further developed the “subjective” aspect, and man becomes “individual”, spiritual, assuming his new status’ consciousness.”
Burckhardt tells us a great part of the truth.
We must admit that in the past centuries, before the Renaissance, in the western world, the individuality of the human was related to it’s collective status and it’s belonging to a city like Sparta, Athens or to a larger community such as being a Roman or a Persian. The slaves were considered as mere tools for work whereas very few people could be recognized as individual human beings, as separated from their collective and religious belonging, such as Jews, Muslims or Christians as far as the Mediterranean and European areas were concerned.
IF the individual is Renaissance culture’s child, however, as we will see further down, it is only because he is capable to change his society.
I think that a human being in our times should be given the possibility of shaping his life, and, in order to be considered as “individual”, should have the freedom and potential to contribute to make changes in his/her society and to develop his/her creativity. But how many in the present world live in such a conditions?
My thoughts are mainly related to the western culture but this is the one in which I can bring a reasonable contribution to our discussion.
The “individual” and the concept of individuality emerged, in fact, before the Renaissance, in the western society, at the end of the middle-ages, 1200-1400 , with the rise and expansion of a new social class: the bourgeoisie, for a series of historical reasons:
a. At the end of the XIII° century many philosophers and thinkers started to recognize the importance of the “artes mechanicae”, craft activities, and manual labour. The Franciscan, Roger Bacon (1214-1292), against Thomas d’Aquino, supported craft activities and experimental work. The disregard for practical and manual activities, this aristocratic attitude, goes back to the mental habit of the Greek society where, for example, Pythagorus refused to consider any practical application to his mathematical theories. Same was the attitude in the church where manual work and other inconveniencies, were the consequences of the banning of the man from terrestrial paradise.
b. In Europe, at the end of the Middle Ages there were practically no slaves left and the Black Death wiped out nearly a quarter of European population. This was one reason (amongst other factors) for the rise of the “machinism”. The sudden diffusion of the machine with the creation of small enterprises and associations of craftsmen : the corporations and the gilde. (Associations among free individuals of the same activities and profession). The corporations had democratic statutes in order to protect the identity and specialization of their members.
c. All this happened mainly during three centuries (1200-1400) together with the rise of the “communes” -- a revolutionary new social aggregation.
d. The feudal society left the countryside in many parts of Europe in the hands of thieves without any protection, whilst Lords were being secured in their castle.
For this reasons the population reassembled inside the Communes, well protected by defence walls. It hosted many small craft laboratories which, with time, will become small industries with entrepreneurs and craftsmen. The commune is governed with democratic rules and a large participation of citizens represented through the corporations and other associations. This is why we consider the commune a pre-democratic social experiment typical of the European culture. In the Muslim society the commune disappears in the “mare magnum” of the Umma which is the universal community of the Muslim world. And in China the Commune has mainly a rural character.
Craft laboratories began to associate themselves with the creation of small enterprises concentrating the entire production cycle: raw material, industrial treatment and commercial distribution of the industrial production.
The owner of this first enterprises is the bourgeois as we know him: capitalist and entrepreneur, far from the byzantine and European merchant of Braudel, and well described by Werner Sombart in his book The Bourgeois.
e. In the years 1300/1400, industries developed through a sort of pre- industrial revolution and the bourgeoisie confirmed itself as an increasingly economically powerful social class, the engine of the industrial and social development in Europe. The large masses of peoples who once did not have a specific identity were associating themselves with various activities inside the communes and thereby begin to develop their own identity within the corporations recognised by the communes as they participate in the management of their administration.
f. The bourgeois is fundamentally individualistic and promotes the protection of private and intellectual property as in the case of patents. Thanks to the development of the press - the first patents emerged in Florence in 1421 and in Venice in 1474. The system is rapidly diffused throughout Europe.
g. The individual at the end of the middle ages was also physically protected by Habeas Corpus (in the Magna Charta signed by King John without land in 1215 who had guardianship over not only private property but also over the physical integrity of its citizens.)
h. Hence the ignition of the great individualistic bourgeois engine which from Renaissance times and thereafter will propel western society towards the industrial revolution and the well known series of scientific, technological, economical and social successes.(not to forget “les droits del’homme” after the French revolution)
i. The key factors in this progress are freedom of thoughts, entrepreneurial freedom and freedom alone was the fertile grounds of creativity. This point was stressed in many interventions.
j. There was no easy path; we took almost 500 years, with great pain if we remember Giordano Bruno and many others. Today in our society the human being is no number but an individual. Primo Levi reminds us in his book : “Se questo è un uomo”(If This Is a Man?) the humiliations of no longer being considered as an individual but relegated as a mere number in the Nazi concentration camps.
The modern state, with democratic constitutions is composed by individuals free to shape their destiny in a legal framework, commonly accepted and contained in the constitutional texts. For our western societies it took , as we said, nearly 500 hundred years to go from being a mere “number” to become an “individual”.
But Big Brother is waiting for us ?
Emergence of Individuality in Western Civilization
Augusto Forti has presented fascinating insights into the origin of Individuality in the Western world. He places stress both on the importance of individual freedom for creative expression and the positive contribution of the Individual to society.
The observations regarding the relationship between the emergence of an artisan and commercial class and the rise of individuality are very perceptive. In developing a unique set of physical skills, the member of the collective takes a first positive step in differentiating himself from others and acquiring the capacity for self-reliance, which the tenant farmer or feudal serf does not possess. Physical capacity for self-reliance is at the foundation of all the higher levels of individuality that have emerged subsequently
It is an irony of history that the terrible Black Death, which struck mercilessly and blindly at both the feudal aristocracy and the lower classes, created a severe shortage of labor and forced society to concede value to the individual worker. Nature’s plague destroyed feudalism and planted the seeds for the emergence of liberal society and modern individuality.
The rise of communes – commercial towns and guilds – which gradually replaced the feudal structure, illustrates the role that new social organization plays in the evolution of society and the evolution of the individual. Augusto calls the communes a pre-democratic social experiment. The economic independence resulting from the growth of manufacturing, trade, entrepreneurship, industrialization, markets, money, and banking gave rise to the emergence of a highly individualistic bourgeois class and development of property rights (law). These developments imparted a further level of freedom of thought and action to the individual, which has grown exponentially over the past five centuries. In this way we can understand that economic democracy served as an essential basis for the rise of liberalism and political democracy. The communes also highlight the central role of social organization in human development. Each type of social organization represents a different stage in the relationship between the individual and the collective. It is fascinating to speculate on what type of social organization may emerge in future that is capable of providing full freedom for the flowering of individual capacities and also full opportunities for the individual to contribute positively to the development of the collective. The Internet – as the first truly global social institution -- holds enormous promise in this regard. This conference is one of millions of experiments in seeing how the Internet’s power can be creatively harnessed to promote both these objectives simultaneously.
Augusto’s outline of modern history traces the emergence of physical freedom, productive capacity, the urge for material independence and the establishment of legal and political rights. Surely these are essential stages but not the end of the process of individuation, individually and collectively. Many people have become self-reliant, physical individuals. Far fewer have acquired the strength and substance of individuality required to set off on their own path and affirm their own beliefs in the face of social opposition. Rarer still is the mental individual who has the courage to truly think for him or herself, to think what others have not conceived and to believe in it and espouse it. Imagine the mental courage required of Copernicus to affirm a new view of the universe and the physical courage required of Columbus to actually risk his life acting on that belief.
Augusto’s outline suggests the possibility of developing a complete scale of individuality from its origins in humanity’s primitive past up to the present and far into the future when the highest forms of individuality become as commonplace as craft skills and commercial entrepreneurship are today.
Augusto’s brief review illustrates the point that virtually every advance in civilization contributes in some measure to the gradual and eventual emergence of the individual. A list of the stages in social development that correspond with the emergence of various aspects of individuality can be developed to show how each stage in the evolution of the collective supports a further stage in the development and emergence of individuality.