expressive individualism

our modern anthropology

In 1985, sociologist Robert Bellah published Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Bellah introduced a term that has become part of the contemporary lexicon for thinking about American life: expressive individualism. The tenets of expressive individualism are familiar to each of us because we are each expressive individualists: you be you; be true to yourself; follow your heart; find yourself.

These phrases are so ubiquitous that we rarely even pause to consider two pertinent things: 1) whether they represent a path to true flourishing for individuals and a broader society; 2) how historically unique they are as a way of ascribing meaning to human life and culture.

Bellah’s concern in the book is broad and historical. He begins the book by looking at how changes in philosophy and anthropology extending back to the early days of the Enlightenment helped to shape our modern perception of human life and culture. Bellah’s book is great. You should read it¹.

Currently, I am in media res on O. Carter Snead’s book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics². Snead, an ethics and law professor at Notre Dame, argues that our modern ideas about bioethical issues—abortion, physician-assisted suicide, in-vitro fertilization and related technologies—have been shaped by expressive individualism and its denial of the biological and philosophical importance of the body. If our will is what matters, the body is—and I know this sounds insane, but it is where we are—immaterial. My plan is to engage more of Snead’s work in this space, but I wanted to provide a more general explanation of the roots of this term and how it shapes every domain of modern life, ethics obviously included.

Individualism
At the heart of modern individualism stands the idea that we hold no obligations regarding other people. The self is “atomized,” or free to exist independently of others. Because of this the brain (or heart) as the seat of desire and cognition dominates over bodily limitations and demands.

The term individualism has long been associated with Alexis de Tocqueville and his American travelogue, Democracy in America. Traversing the American countryside in the early 1800s, de Tocqueville noticed the weakened ties of the pioneering frontiersmen. He worried that in this manner of living “each man is forever thrown back upon himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.”

Otheres were more sanguine about individualism’s potential. Adam Smith theorized that the naked pursuit of self-interest would lead to broad societal goods. John Locke believed that people were innately innocent (in a “state of nature”) and that society mucked everything up—cutting society and debts to society out of the equation would only lead to more joy and happiness.

As individualism has developed in America over the past two centuries, the individual has become increasingly marginalized from broad, societal concerns and become narrowly focused on his own self-interest (not only de Tocqueville bu Smith and Locke would turn in their graves). Bellah defined the modern iteration as follows: the free individual is “presumed able to choose the roles he will play and the commitments he will make, not on the basis of higher truths, but according to the criterion of life-effectiveness as the individual judges it.”

Indeed, to flourish as a human being proceeds according to the degree to which we are free of external constraints. Even moral restraints are self-chosen for the most part. There are no ends towards which we direct our steps. There is no purpose or telos of human being. We are what we decide to be.

Expressivism
If individualism goes back to the Enlightenment, expressivism finds its home in Romanticism. One of my favorite Romantic poems is Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Tennyson imagines the recently returned Greek hero (Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus) quickly bored in rocky old Ithaca. What does he his “aged” wife, Penelope, or his mostly fatherless son, Telemachus? Nothing, apparently. His debts are to himself, “to follow knowledge like a sinking star,/ Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” He might be an old man, but it’s not too late for a new adventure.

Here is how Bellah describes expressivism: “each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized.” We can’t just be individuals—we have to express our individualism and, somewhat paradoxically, receive validation from others honoring our mode of expression.

We are each measured by our own feelings and fidelity to our desires. Our goal is to find our truth and express it.

As I mentioned, this is sort of difficult because we are simultaneously individuals without need for others but expressivists desperate for legitimation. I do not need to express myself the same way that you do, but you better validate my mode of expression.

Of course, what I wish to express is also highly malleable. Should I choose one mode of expression today and another tomorrow, it is not your job to question my inconsistency but to praise my adaptability.

Conclusion
And that is the mode of modern life. We are individuals, beholden to none, and expressivists, free to act on our own inclinations with very limited boundaries. Other people are alternately helpful and inconvenient, but in any event, we are not bound to please or adapt to their requirements. Society is useful only insofar as it makes room for my individual expression; it is harmful to the degree that it inhibits my absolute freedom.

As I said at the beginning, this latent belief—the water in which we swim—has overlapping effects on every facet of modern life. At the very least, it is worth pointing out that this is unique historically speaking. This is not how most of our ancestors engaged with the world; outside of the WEIRD ecosystem, it is still not the basic worldview at work today.

The solution to this problem (assuming you see it as a problem) cannot include tinkering around the edges. It requires nothing less than a (re)commitment to dependence and belonging, to a life of joyful and useful obligation to others.

Fortunately, people are finally awakening to the emptiness at the heart of modern life. We are plagued by what Emile Durkeim called anomie, or normlessness. Without standards outside of ourselves by which we can discern and judge our own morality, we adopt our own subjective standards. The problem with this is that we are never sure that we have chosen correctly and therefore constantly concerned that we might be missing out on something substantial.

Part of the great unrest around us today stems from peoples’ inability to shoulder these burdens. We live in a world crying out for meaning and purpose. Can we show that world a path forward, which, as Lewis liked to point out, might involve walking backwards?

1. It is a dense book and not always an easy read, but it is not annoying in its scholarship as so many other books are in this field.

2. It is a fantastic book. If you are interested in these things, it is a great resource. I am currently finishing the chapter on abortion, so I am over halfway through. That seems sufficient progress to make a recommendation.