Professional Custom Accounting: Individualism vs. Communalism
Individualism vs. Communalism ~ “the need of the one” or the “need of the many”?
Human beings need each other, it is that simple. Men hunted wild game in packs and women birthed and nurtured their families in packs. We are communal creatures – so when and why did the concept of individuality begin? We were for centuries defined by our gender, or our class, or our professions, or our utility to a society – but seldom were we defined by our unique qualities, unless we were the few and the fearless who aspired to greatness above the masses. And here is where the occasional person or people emerge who place more value on the unique ability of the individual, then on the herding instinct of the masses. Art became a way for the one to differentiate themselves from the many, as it expressed a part of them in a public setting. For example, the communalism of an army was always led by the individuality of a general and his art of military tactics. Athens is a good example of a society that stressed the power of the individual with the creation of Athenian Democracy that granted all citizens, males over 18, a voice in the politics of the city-state.
