One would naturally assume that a book about Western individualism would start with a definition of the term and then provide some examples of how this concept exists in the West, but not in other civilizations. After all, it is a term that is used in various ways and it also carries moral connotations. That is not the case with Kevin MacDonald’s latest book, Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition. Instead, it is left to the reader to figure out what the author means by individualism.
There is the first challenge in understanding the main assertion of the book. The claim at various points in the text is that individualism is unique to the West. This is the result of the people who settled in the lands we now think of as Europe. They possessed qualities that made it possible for them to adapt to the harsh climate of Europe, but the climate also selected for those qualities. These behavioral traits are also the basis for what we think of as individualism, however defined.
It is an established fact that the variations in climate and geography create different selection pressures on the life in different regions. Cold climates select for life that can survive in cold climates. Rainy climates select for life that can exist with extremely high average annual rainfall. These selection pressures apply to humans, which is why we can observe the great diversity of people. East Asians were selected for, so to speak, the climate and geography of East Asia.
The first three chapters of the book cover the migration of people into Europe and what we know about the organizational structures. Europe was initially settled by hunter-gatherers with an egalitarian culture. Then nomadic people with an aristocratic warrior class came in from the east. MacDonald argues that the genetic basis for egalitarianism and meritocracy is in these original people. This is not an argument from science, but rather an argument from inference.
It cannot be emphasized enough how marriage patterns and family formation helped define what we think of as the West. The rapid decline in cousin marriage, for example, is arguably the great leap forward for Western people. It naturally lead to the evolution of alternatives to narrow kinship in human cooperation. MacDonald does a good job summarizing how these mating patterns were brought to the West with the aristocratic people who migrated from the East.
In the next chapters the focus shifts to culture and history. Chapter four is about European family formation. The focus is entirely on Europe, so the reader is left to guess why this differs from the rest of the world. Chapters five and six are about Christianity in Europe. Chapter seven focuses on British idealism and then chapter eight focuses on moral communities. These chapters are a long summary of how individualism, however defined, shaped Western history.
Chapter eight is an interesting chapter in that he finally gets around to providing a definition of individualism. He states at the opening that individualist societies are based on the reputation of the individual. Group cohesion depends on the members judging other members on an individual basis. Each member also accepts that he will be judged by society as an individual. This contrasts with other societies where membership in a tribe or clan is the basis for judging people.
This gets to the major flaw in the book. It needs an editor. The parts are here for a straight line argument that individualism has genetic roots and that it was selected for in European people. As humans adapted to the harsh northern climates, they adopted social structures that rewarded the behaviors necessary to survive as a group in the areas we now call Europe. While we cannot locate an “individualism gene” we can infer it through things like marriage patterns and family formation.
This would make for a nice, crisp two hundred page book. Instead, these bits are spread over five hundred pages, mixed with material that is highly debatable. People familiar with the history of the early church, for example, will scratch their head at the assertions made in chapter five. The section on Puritanism often seems to contradict what he said in early chapters about individualism. A professional editor could have pointed this out and forced a rethinking of these chapters.
Another problem with the book is that it is not really about individualism so much as a way to support his theory of group evolutionary strategy. As a result, he reduces group behavior to individual motivations. This sort of reductionism is common among older right-wing writers for some reason. That generation has always had a fetish for assigning base human desires to the behavior of groups. For some reason, emergent behavior lies beyond their intellectual event horizon.
The final criticism of the book is that it fails to explain why individualism has led the West to the verge of self-extinction. It has become an article of faith in certain circles that Western individualism is the cause of decline. Some argue that it makes it possible for tribal minority groups to exert undue influence on society to the detriment of the majority population. If so, then why now and not a century ago or five centuries ago when the West was far more fragmented?
The counter here is that this is not the point of the book. Others will need to pick up from where the book leaves off to make those arguments. The trouble is the book ends with a chapter on individualism versus multiculturalism. That and the intended readership is the sort of people talking about how individualism is at the root of the current crisis in the West. Given the bulk of the book is a review of Western culture, it is logical that this topic should be addressed.
The question in every book review is whether the book is worth reading. Just as every child deserves love, ever book deserves reading. Despite the structural flaws, the book does a good job describing early Europeans. The section on moral communities is probably the best chapter in the book and the most relevant. That is a good reward for slogging through the chapters on religion. The final chapter is a good summation of the White Nationalist worldview, for those interested.
Overall, it is a mixed recommendation. The first three chapters are well worth the time, even though they could use some editing. The chapter on moral communities is another good use of reading time. The chapters on religion will be exasperating for those who have a good religious education. Overall, it fails to deliver on the main topic and its role in the current crisis, but it provides a lot of interesting material that is being carefully avoided by mainstream writers and thinkers.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
“That generation has always had a fetish for assigning base human desires to the behavior of groups. For some reason, emergent behavior lies beyond their intellectual event horizon.”
Say more about this when you get around to it.
Strictly speaking, a desire is individual though there may be a commonality of desire, a kind of meta-desire around which individual group members coalesce. On the surface, our current drift to identity politics, having, by now, become mannerist and grotesque, would seem to suggest the attitude, “The majority has become psychologically weak and decadent. Now’s our chance!”
This view is simplistic, to be sure, but portrays an emergent behavior based on a group desire to exploit a perceived opportunity.
1
Managed to get through culture of critique,
I’ll take you word on this one.
Met Mr. Mcdonald & had dinner with him & several others a few years ago. I’m not a scholarly type.
I imagine those for those that are find it a chore having a conversation with people like myself.
& visa vresa.
7
Color me skeptical on this idea that cold northern climes became the adaptive or evolutionary basis for western individualism when in my experience when it’s cold and rainy people naturally huddle together — they don’t go off on their own.
3
4
The whole “cold evolution”-theory is sorely lacking in evidence, not to say outright bogus. If it were true, Eskimos would be the smartest people on the planet.
There might be a Goldilocks zone, but no attempt at specification or explanation of how that works or where the border is, has been made. The cold evolutionists still have all their work in front of them.
5
3
Individualism and intelligence are not the same thing. Jews are smart and highly clannish. Gypsies are stupid and highly clannish. I do not think anyone correlates average temperature with individualism. Instead, the combination of climate and geography in Europe favored cross-kin cooperation. Over time, individual merit proved to be the better way to evaluate people over tribal or familial identity, even though both persisted. Even today, we tend to judge people by race, ethnicity and what we know about their family. It is juts that individua merit can trump all three.
10
The evolutionary basis for individualism seems to me, and I could be wrong, but mainly an American fixation on understanding the people they come from. Like a search for a lost relative. I don’t see actual Northern Europeans buying into this stuff, at least not to the extent that Americans do.
But more to the point, Individualism became the thing only very recently, and if anything seems to have played a part it would be industrialization and surplus money that allowed people to go off on their own. When everyone has money and could afford a house, and in every house can have a room for each person, sure, go ahead and do your own thing in the confines of your personal space. It otherwise, everywhere in the northern regions people were always very clannish and group oriented. We all know that when we were in school and it started raining or snowing outside that there was suddenly a feeling of everyone sort of cuddling together. The mood became one of people wanting to huddle closer. So that’s the natural pressures from cold and rain and snow, it pushes people closer — not apart.
I would also posit that Protestantism and the break from the Catholic Church may have had psychological effects on Northern Europeans — such that leaving the herd became a part of their identify.
But to say this all stems from evolutionary pressures? Nah, not buying it. For one, throughout most of human history in these northern climes, people were always very group oriented. Just look at the cultural artifacts. Christmas caroling as a simple example off the top of my head. Choral music. Team sports. Campfires. Telling folk stories to each other. There is so much legacy stuff that points to a people who naturally liked to huddle up in groups. And it was always mostly the cranks and curmudgeons who wanted to be left alone.
6
Instead, the combination of climate and geography in Europe favored cross-kin cooperation.
Okay, but the argument remains the same: no accounting for Asians living in similar climatic and geographical regions, yet remaining clannish.
It’s right wing Jared Diamond-ism: an alluring escape from a purely racial model but with too many exceptions to not require detailed explanation that’ll account for those. It might be that they’re onto something but they still need to do the science before their thesis can advance to become a theory.
It is probably no coincidence that cold evolution models are favored by psychologists, showing a bias to the influence of the environment and, sometimes, being a bit shaky on the notion of scientific evidence.
I figure we won’t have to wait for long to get the answer. In the next ten years, genetic research will likely advance further than it has done from Gregor Mendel and up to the present: we’ll get chapter and verse on human nature, spelled out in painfully racist details.
3
No all East Asians are clannish. The wheat Asians are different in this regard from the rice Asians. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opinion/why-are-some-cultures-more-individualistic-than-others.html
Which is why genetic research will be banned.
It is in the very smallest societies where merit counts the most. In a small tribe everyone knows everyone else. There’s no need for elections as potential leaders have been identified by their contemporaries since childhood. Heredity is a factor but the leadership qualities of an individual are well known and nit wits are ignored even if they personally aspire to greatness.
Look around at the situation today. Complex democratic nation/states are led by simple figureheads selected by the elite for their actual lack of the required merit. It’s less and less likely that an individual like Mussolini or Bismarck will appear in the forseeable future.
3
You guys miss the big picture by concentrating on certain geographical and ethnic groups. The thing is, right under our noses, are a species that has advanced far more than anything human and more intelligent and conscientious.
Dolphins!
5
Eskimos are hunter/gatherers—not agrarian farmers, or even pastoral herd keepers. There is some discussion of their seeming IQ “anomaly” in the literature IIRC.
Carleton Coon (yes, real name) covered this subject extensively back in 1960s with his landmark book “The Origin of Races”. It’s been long out of print and of course he’s been long forgotten and would be cancelled if anyone thought to do it. Regardless, his theory: The “out of Africa” tribes that migrated to Europe and N Asia had to figure out (the hard way) how to survive a non-tropical environment where food is plenty year round. Surviving the winters of Europe meant figuring out food storage techniques, finding/building adequate shelter, gathering fuel for cooking/warmth, making warm clothing, and many other things that were not necessary in the tropical environment from whence they originated. Compound this knowledge over hundreds of generations and you have the makings of Western man. Those that stayed in the tropics never remained evolutionarily stalled as they never had to develop the brainpower to survive a new climate. That’s the theory anyway.
3
And all of that predates the knowledge that
1. Early Sapiens interbred with the indigenous European Neandertals, thus all modern genetic Europeans are hybrids.
2. Neandertals were not the stupid, brutish “cavemen” of early scholarship. Turns out they were far smarter and creative than given credit for. There’s a real possibility that Neandertal survival skills and culture were adapted by early Sapiens migrating north and contact was established between the species.
4
is that you, Tex Arcane? 😛
So, the theory is that you can take Ndale from Niamey, Niger and put him in New Paltz and he will thrive?
Immediately?
Soon?
A generation?
2 or 3 generations?
12 generations or by the time some brilliant, latter-day scholar like Nikole Hannah-Jones chronicles all of the contributions to civilization made by your descendants?
1
If you always had food any time of the year you didn’t have to think and this “not-think” was genetically imprinted, but if you had to figure out how to grow the food, how to store it, how to find drinking water, keep it safe in droughts, how to find and process cooking fuel and husband your resources long term so that you didn’t run out and didn’t have to travel miles to obtain it once the nearby resources were exhausted, and then on top of that have time to think up new methods to protect your resources from predators, it requires a lot of brain cells. Why is it that Africans and South American natives cannot figure out that if you cut down all the trees for fuel, next year you will have to migrate to a new area or your children will starve?
Cooperation is only one facet of the cold environment theory. Long term planning, inventiveness w/regards to fuel, food and fodder another. Warm season abundance and access to raw materials for construction probably another, so the eskimo analogy is a bit off. The Inuit have a lack of raw material and seasonal abundances so they have reached the peak of what theor climate allows. Tundra dwellers have never and would never be able to rise above subsistence carnivorous hunting/gathering despite the additional challenges of cold environs, because they lack the other elements I listed above.
1
If a cold climate produces superior cultures the Eskimos would be running the world. Skip Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, skim MacDonald’s introduction to Tomislav Sunic’s Homo Americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age and then read that.
1
4
Yes, true. Another author (Fuerle, maybe) noted the same. The explanation given, which seemed reasonable to me, was that at the extremes of the tropics near the equator and the polar regions, that food is available substantially the year round, and the KINDs of food are pretty unchanged. In start contrast are the temperate zones (e.g. Europe) where you tend to have a growing (or hunt and gather season) and cold winters that require having laid in a substantial food supply if one expected to survive. Stated another way, in temperate climes, nature selects for a low time preference ( = the ability to plan ahead), which isn’t really required if you can spear a fish or a seal any time of the year, or dig a taro root out of the ground to munch upon.
6
But what about the American Indians in Southern Canada and the Northern US? They were essentially stone-age people when Columbus arrived. Hunter-gatherers living a mostly nomadic lifestyle. Compare them to the empire in Central and South America.
1
No, they were agriculturalists, not nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Haudenosenee had already developed their Great League, so the most enduring native political system in the Northeast, which still exists today, was already in place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_Site,_Wendat_(Huron)_Ancestral_Village
And why is it never the other way around, say just for the sake of argument? Why is it that we became individualistic and not that others became tribalistic after finding that individualism didn’t work for them evolutionarily speaking ? Notice how the conceit in these studies is that “tribalism” is always the base human default norm and the assumed jumping off or starting point and that people eventually move out of and away from it — for reasons.
With the self-described evolutionists such as Macdonald and Sailer, I see in them a lot of similarities with the freudians, for example. Every little aspect of existence is always shoehorned into the theory. English have genetically poor teeth because that helped them survive a diet of beets and berries. Men get morning wood because of suppressed sexual attraction to their mothers in the birth canal, essentially the morning of their lives. Etc etc If sailer had his way, the pleasure I feel with the wind in my hair and against my ears would have some evolutionary basis in human survival. Even though my dog feels the same pleasure….. the goosebumps on my arms when my wife whispers in my ear helped men survive harsh winters.
I’m not arguing that evolutionary ideas do not have their merits, but in the hands of most men they become merely a crutch, a way to avoid the complexity and mystery of life because some guys just can’t handle that at the end of the day they really don’t know or understand much. And that upsets their egos. So this is really about hubris, something the Greeks talked about and as old as the hills. The more interesting question is why do men like Macdonald and Sailer need evolutionary ideas to make them feel whole. Why can’t they just throw up their arms and admit, “who the hell knows? “
2
Individualism appeared in Christendom because each soul is judged individually before God and individualism is leading us into extinction because we still have it, but deny God
13
“Some argue that it makes it possible for tribal minority groups to exert undue influence on society to the detriment of the majority population. If so, then why now and not a century ago or five centuries ago when the West was far more fragmented?”
Whitney brings up a good point. Christianity had a natural individualistic influence on the West. Sure you have the realpolitik “divine right of kings” nonsense but countering that was the fact that European societies as a whole adopted the individualistic teachings of Christ.
A King could be humbled to make penances for transgressions. A peasant could rise to Sainthood and any high or low born could rise to martyrdom.
Medieval people, no matter which of the three elements, were deluged in the parables of the Prodigal Son, the widow and her copper coins, and Christ’s challenge of throwing stones. A mule driver’s son could rise to Bishop and Europeans as a whole rejected preordaination as heresy, as seen in the purge of the heretical Cathars.
As to Zman’s question above. The wars of Reformation were still among Christians,. Whether or not they viewed the other side as heretical, opposite factions still operated within a mental framework of Christianity. Most Enlightenment era scions were either devout Christians or at least had their mentality informed by Christianity as the West and Christianity are inextricably intertwined.
It isn’t until a certain tribe (being euphemistic here so as to not activate the badthink auto-filter) was no longer castigated and regularly purged from Western society that we see the West become narcissistic, nihilistic and suicidal.
We have the great tikkun olam gift of Communism, which struck at the heart of the West’s faith and individualism. It isn’t happenstance that this tribe is at the forefront of any modern movement to rectify the ills of society, expertly manipulating the West’s legal system to ensure pornography is “free speach”, individual gun ownership is constantly attacked and third world immigration a Western imperative. Since the arrival of this tribe en masse to America in the 1900-1930s, they have been and remain at the forefront of dismantling Christianity in the U.S. I think their effect on countering individualism is exponentially profound.
Sorry to be ao verbose, and yes… I went there on the J Q…
9
It’s valid. The talmud seeks to destroy Christ’s Kingship and the kabala seeks to destroy Christ’s Priesthood. Nothing new under the sun
6
To go into more detail on the individualism taught by Christ, there are two interesting layers. First, as Whitney says, each soul is judged individually before God, but also that we are not to judge others, and we are expected to work to support ourselves. The New Testament gives many examples of Jesus expecting individual effort, in contrast to modern liberals who try to justify the welfare state by taking His teachings out of context.
But second, this is not the Ayn Rand school of rugged, selfish individualism. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and take care of widows and orphans. But even here, there is no teaching on forcing others to contribute to society. Jesus gave us a lot of “shoulds” but no “musts”. He didn’t petition the Romans for higher taxes to help the poor. He redeemed the tax collectors and asked for voluntary charity, individually not collectively.
It is easy to overlook the brilliance and perfection of the roadmap He gave us to structure our lives. Even for non-believers, this is a map to a successful society with happy individuals.
We are absolutely supposed to judge others because we are entreated to correct our brothers and sisters when they fall into error so they do not condemn their internal souls to hell. That takes judgment
1
“The final criticism of the book is that it fails to explain why individualism has led the West to the verge of self-extinction.”
Evidently this book is just an example of why The West and its current concepts of individualism resulting in imperial decline aren’t accurately described by society in general.
So let me take a stab at it and see how my belief holds up to criticism:
“The West is on the verge of self-extinction because what we call individualism is now a construct largely defined by the laws of Government and does not come from the hearts and souls of men.”
11
Keeping it as simple as I can.
We all live our lives as individuals, but are heavily influenced by those around us and the social and cultural norms that guide our behaviors. That is like gravity, it is everywhere all the time.
At the root, “individualism” is about a preferred bias toward self reliance to the maximum degree feasible, and it includes a necessary corollary of society not interfering too heavily in an individual’s practice of being self reliant. In this sense, individualism is the antipode of parasitism. And individualism does not exclude cooperative behaviors that are largely voluntary. Self reliance is both a survival imperative and a moral good, and should be practiced at both the individual and community levels.
Individualism is not selfishness at the extreme. Parents would not feed their young if that were the case. The aphorism that best describes individualism is “live and let live.” Individuals can be motivated to act by inspiration or sound leadership. Whereas, parasites act solely in ultimate self interest and can only be motivated by coercion or force.
10
Individualism seems like an American historical anomaly that we are trying to make fit across European cultures in general out of a collective bias in favor of ourselves as the norm.
In Europe they have always looked down upon our individualism and would mock it. Trying now to shoehorn European peoples into our own cowboy boots completely disregards the facts on the ground and both the recent and long-standing customs and attitudes of those people.
In fact I’d suggest that this is just an American way of trying to reconnect with our lost kin.
There are so many pathologies among Americans stemming from our leaving the nest for a new world that I would start there when trying to make sense of any of this. Because I know Europeans don’t need evolutionary science to help give them an idea as to who they are and why they do the things they do. The fact that Americans do is just another bit of evidence in their sad conclusion that we are just lonely and lost people and that maybe coming here and leaving was a grave error. That is the predominant attitude of Europeans toward us.
I mean, if we are trying to understand Northern Europeans, shouldn’t we at least look to actual Northern Europeans for clues? Why ignore them wholesale and endeavor along a scientific path when they are right there and still alive and would be eager and willing to give us their two cents on the matter.
But no, instead we isolate ourselves in what amounts to a laboratory thousands of miles away to try to make sense of things on the other side of the ocean.
I have to wonder how much time a Kevin Macdonald or a Steve sailer, both of whom claim some kind of academic expertise on European peoples, how much time they have actually spent in Europe. My bet is very little, and isn’t that kind of important?
Nice one, Tom. That’s a pretty succinct definition of individualism that I can definitely relate to. I was scratching my head, wondering how to define it, and then I read your comment.
Hats off, old chap.
Purchase Kevin MacDonald books for the same reason you purchase:
Jean Raspail (The Camp of the Saints)
Ernst Junger (Eumeswil)
H.J. Eysenck (The Inequality of Man)
Wilmot Robertson (The Dispossessed Majority)
TheZman (Title forthcoming)
They may not be “right”, but they are very, very naughty. You should always have hard copies of actual “forbidden books”, and this includes K. MacD.
(
5