Discuss, discuss!

"Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable, yet a return to traditional forms would be to return to intolerable discrimination and oppression" (Bellah et. al., p. 144).

To discuss this, first the "traditional forms" have to be defined. And what were these traditional forms of life? They were characterized by a life for one's family and community. A person's existence was integrated tightly into his or her social fabric. Utter individual separation from the pack was deemed "egotistic," a peculiarity and anomaly.

Another point is that the ancient republican and biblical religious values, of personal roles as wife serving a husband, slave belonging to a master, were aspects of an unequal yet respected and functional system.

Cutting off these republican and biblical traditions, thus, according to Tocqueville, would seem to weaken "the ideal of individual dignity."

However, somehow it does not for many. Perhaps because we are so accustomed to this "modern individualism," we don't quite mind ignoring biblical values. I question if individualism is the natural form of being for the human. Following Freud's teachings on the ego and superego - yes, clearly it's natural. Clearly we are all subconscious egotists. Perhaps within republican and biblical frameworks, people have been repressing their innate needs for individual expression and fulfillment, all along? Have their moral conscious superegos been at perpetual toil, struggling to repress their solitary desires and shove them into a place in society? Perhaps these individualistic ideas of life were taboos, taboos like certain sexual and social behaviors of today?

Thus, maybe people - once acquainted with individualism and, at last, a means to satisfy their desires stemming from the ID, once they feel the freedom - another way of life to them appears scandalous. Barbarian. "Intolerable discrimination and oppression" is of course a relative term based on our societal values. In ancient Egypt, many paupers would not have felt oppressed by their lower status because they accepted it as their ancient place within society. Their fathers had been paupers, their grandparents had been paupers, their great-grandparents had been paupers, they were paupers, and these were the ways of the Earth. Even a great legacy, history, and culture of their nation of Egypt.

In modern times USA, the wife is no servant to the husband. She searches for individual fulfillment and testing of her skills in a career. She is free to choose a social circle and thrives on a mutual relationship with the husband. Limiting the woman to a homemaker role would be discrimination, it would be oppression. The individual ID requires self-satisfaction, and it is unwilling to repress its desires into a taboo and conformed way of being. Not again.