Relevance of Individualism in Life Today - Essay Example

Relevance of Individualism in Life Today Introduction Individualism is the virtue of a person expressing self-reliability and being self-independent regardless of the surrounding world with different views of individuals’ doctrines related to moral, ideology , social , and political philosophy. Individualism entails a number of issues including individual’s freedom of choice, self-reliance, autonomy, and self-responsibility, which are virtues that uniquely identifies an individual from collectivism. The most important virtue of individualism is self-reliance that Emerson extensively explains inn details [1-16]. Self-reliance is the virtue of individualism, which enable an individual to have a strong belief of own thoughts and an inner feeling of self-centered such that the individual opinion applies to all other persons, which implies the individual is a genius in all matters and ideas proposed (Emerson 1). In addition, Emerson states, “speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense…” indicate that self-reliance is all about the inner belief of an individual’s capability to rule the world of ideas [1]. According to the author, a man depends solely on what runs in own mind rather than what the society speculates on ideas. However, the author identifies the ignorance of own thoughts of individuals, which lead to dismissal of viable ideas. The world has a diversified view of ideas from individuals who may differ at some point whereby the most important fact is to express individual idea from a perspective that it is the best compared to all others in regard to a context. The detection of ideas through internal thoughts and meditation is more important than the collective thinking to come up with ideas. Various factors affect the way individuals express ideas with some of them opting to take other opinions disposing what was on the mind. An individual idea is unique in the world of ideas; hence, the individual should not be compromised by other people’s ideas but push what is in mind to be embraced by all other individuals and the world at large. Relevance of Essays to individualism today Individuals past thoughts, decisions, and achievements as a success following self-reliance is different as time goes on whereby, other factors contributes towards individualisms such as sociology, western civilization, education, and region. These factors may limit individual’s self-reliance; hence, ideas from a specific person are limited in the society. However, the authors of the articles clearly indicate that is an important virtue in individuals’ lives today (2013) because it helps to advance other aspects such as freedom of speech, trustworthy among others. Education and Ignorance In Relation To Individualism Today Education is an important aspect in the life of individuals not only on the career perspective, but also in recognition of personal weakness and strength in life, which eventually enhances individualism today in a positive way. In the essay of Emerson about self-reliance, it is evident that once a man gets educated, the sense of ignorance of own thoughts in life eventually reveals ; hence an individual is able to accept the previous mistakes done because of ignorance. Notably in individuals’ life, it has been observed that ignorance is not because of illiteracy rather it is revealed by literacy for example an individual may ignore the effect of having unprotected sex due to friends influence but once educated on the effects associated, it helps to prevent any future incidence whereby individualism decision will prevail over the peer pressure. This indicates that education enhances individualism today in such a way that through the experiences and required knowledge in life, an individual thinks on his own for his own welfare and decision making. Self-View And the World View In Relation To Individualism Toady The world has different views towards an individual’s problems and achievements with those that the specific person has on glitches and successes (Bois 1). The world views a person as a problem while the persons views the world to cause the problems, which leads to a feeling of strangeness. According to Bois, life began with personal feeling that all the other students are better such that what remained was to beat the mates’ stringy heads at examination-time [2]. Girls refused gift cards offered by the author leaving no desire for tearing down the veil gift and creeping through a painful, outcast and humiliated life.However, the prejudice did not prevent the author from visualizing the opportunity ahead and believed that the historic race of Nigro in the American territory would, one day, give equal opportunity to the two races. This race improved the author’s individualism such that Bois had a vision of outdoing all those who had administered mistreatments despite them being Americans. An Observation made in individual’s educational life indicates that there are various levels of integrity revealed by the performance. The weak students are always viewed as in appropriate but once in life time they start reveal lining how important they are in the society, a sense off individualism develops, which also reflects their performance in class helping them to be self-reliant regardless of low integrity levels. This shows that individualism goes a long way in helping individuals achieve their goals in life discouraging factors such as prejudice and low self-esteem. Obedience In Relation To Individualism The virtue of individualism is compromised by obedience, which is a virtue closely related to Christianity whereby the author indicates that the “organization man” fails to be aware of the act of obeying and believes solely on what is rational and practical [322]. From the essay, the individual, it is evident that individualism has impact on obedience and consequently, on an individual life whereby Adam and Eve were punished by God because of disobedience. However, this act was the first towards realization of freedom to humankind which broke the bond of nature making them individuals. I real life, it is observed that an individual may choose individualism over obedience to have freedom for example where a student sis supposed to obey a gangleader by taking drugs and decides not to for individualism to prevail. This shows that obedience, as important as it is, it does not apply to all aspects related to individuals’ decision. Conclusion Individualism virtues that lead to self-reliance in life are important to an individual in putting own thoughts in practice such that all others will follow the ideas and matters relate to individualism and not living according to the crowds’ demand. Work cited Emerson, Ralph. Self –Reliance.Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts, 1841.Web. 4 May. 2013. ‹ http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm›. Bois W.E.B. Du .Of Our Spiritual Strivings.The Souls of Black Folk. 1903. Web. 4 May. 2013. ‹ http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html›. Moghaddam, Fathali. The Individual and Society: A Cultural Integration. New York, NY: Rachel Goldberg, 2002. 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