The Politics of Individualism
Encyclopedia
The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism, and Anarchism is a 1993 political science
book by L. Susan Brown
. She begins by noting that liberalism
and anarchism
seem at times to share common components, but on other occasions are in direct opposition to one another. She argues that what they have in common is "existential individualism", the belief in freedom for freedom's sake. However, she notes that in liberal works there exists also an "instrumental individualism", by which she means freedom to satisfy individual interests. Brown argues that the latter annihilates the intentions of the former because it allows individuals the "freedom" to disrupt the freedom of other individuals in its aim of achieving individual goals. On the other hand, instrumental individualism requires some degree of existential individualism to sustain itself.
Next Brown looks at how these ideas of individualism were used in the liberal feminist
writings of John Stuart Mill
, Betty Friedan
, Janet Radcliffe Richards
, and Carole Pateman
. She finds that the existential individualism expressed in some passages of these authors writings are effectively countered by notions of instrumental individualism contained elsewhere. Next she looks at how individualism was used by anarchists such as Emma Goldman
and Alexander Berkman
, and sees them as maintaining a consistency of existential individualism. However, she sees this as being less the case for other anarchists, including Pierre Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin
, Mikhail Bakunin
, and Murray Bookchin
, who, rather than seeing individuals as existentially
free to create their own destiny, devise other means to explain why such a society would work. For instance, she criticizes Kropotkin and Bakunin's efforts to define human nature
as innately cooperative as unnecessary, seeing human nature as inexistent or as socially developed. Brown sees existentialism as a better alternative, because it allows anarchists "to shift the grounds of debate away from 'human nature' with all its attendant problems, toward a consideration of how we can create freedom for ourselves and others." She next looks at the existentialist works of Simone de Beauvoir
, seeing her overall notion of the world as created by human individuals as compatible with anarchism.
She ends by arguing that anarchism has to be feminist or ceases to be anarchism, and those anarchists who are not feminists only compromise their commitment to anarchism by ignoring the domination of women by men. Brown argues that this is true not only for feminism, but for all forms of identity politics
. Although she does not argue that feminism has to be anarchist, she does say that anarchism has much to offer feminism as a movement. The same, she says, is true for anarchism, which generally does not often take into account feminist ideas of child-raising and education. For instance, the idea of raising children existentially free from their parents and educated nonhierarchically by a community, is an area of thought not often considered by anarchists.
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
book by L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown is a Canadian anarcho-communist writer and theoretician.Brown is best-known for her germinal text The Politics of Individualism , in which she makes a distinction between "existential individualism" and "instrumental individualism" and examines how these forms are utilized in...
. She begins by noting that liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
and anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
seem at times to share common components, but on other occasions are in direct opposition to one another. She argues that what they have in common is "existential individualism", the belief in freedom for freedom's sake. However, she notes that in liberal works there exists also an "instrumental individualism", by which she means freedom to satisfy individual interests. Brown argues that the latter annihilates the intentions of the former because it allows individuals the "freedom" to disrupt the freedom of other individuals in its aim of achieving individual goals. On the other hand, instrumental individualism requires some degree of existential individualism to sustain itself.
Next Brown looks at how these ideas of individualism were used in the liberal feminist
Liberal feminism
Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices...
writings of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
, Janet Radcliffe Richards
Janet Radcliffe Richards
Janet Radcliffe Richards is a British philosopher who has written about feminism and bioethics.She was Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University 1979-1999, and Director of the Centre for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine at University College London until 2007...
, and Carole Pateman
Carole Pateman
Carole Pateman is a British feminist and political theorist. She earned a DPhil at the University of Oxford. Since 1990, Professor Pateman has taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Los Angeles . In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the British Academy...
. She finds that the existential individualism expressed in some passages of these authors writings are effectively countered by notions of instrumental individualism contained elsewhere. Next she looks at how individualism was used by anarchists such as Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
and Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, and sees them as maintaining a consistency of existential individualism. However, she sees this as being less the case for other anarchists, including Pierre Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
, and Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, who, rather than seeing individuals as existentially
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
free to create their own destiny, devise other means to explain why such a society would work. For instance, she criticizes Kropotkin and Bakunin's efforts to define human nature
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
as innately cooperative as unnecessary, seeing human nature as inexistent or as socially developed. Brown sees existentialism as a better alternative, because it allows anarchists "to shift the grounds of debate away from 'human nature' with all its attendant problems, toward a consideration of how we can create freedom for ourselves and others." She next looks at the existentialist works of Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
, seeing her overall notion of the world as created by human individuals as compatible with anarchism.
She ends by arguing that anarchism has to be feminist or ceases to be anarchism, and those anarchists who are not feminists only compromise their commitment to anarchism by ignoring the domination of women by men. Brown argues that this is true not only for feminism, but for all forms of identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
. Although she does not argue that feminism has to be anarchist, she does say that anarchism has much to offer feminism as a movement. The same, she says, is true for anarchism, which generally does not often take into account feminist ideas of child-raising and education. For instance, the idea of raising children existentially free from their parents and educated nonhierarchically by a community, is an area of thought not often considered by anarchists.