DEMOCRATIC INDIVIDUALISM AND ITS CRITICS

Where democracy exists, there will be individualism. The historical record shows that democracy inevitably engenders individualism. This proposition will be challenged by those who think either that individualism can obtain in nondemocratic cultures or that democracy can exist without engendering individualism. The paper rejects both contentions. The defining characteristic of democracy is freedom, and the oldest democratic concept of freedom is the Greek one: To be free is to live as one likes. Versions of that definition are found wherever people are or aspire to be democratic. To live as one likes means that one is allowed to try out various roles in life. Each person is more than any single role, function, or place in society. Individualism consists in that idea. Only democracy inspires it. It is also true that democracy, in reaction, produces antidemocratic individualism. The greatest students of democratic individualism are Plato and Tocqueville, and they are also its profoundest critics. But contemporary critics are certainly worth scholarly attention.