The Medieval Origin of Western Individualism

…Here I will argue that the medieval papacy is responsible for the creation of the modern Western individual, that rootless man obsessed by his own salvation, identity, and self-realization. I will not deny that Western individualism has produced an exceptional harvest of geniuses in all fields of human culture, and unleashed an unprecedented outpouring of creativity. That, I think, is undeniable. And perhaps it was worth it. I will simply argue that the pathological—and contagious—stage that Western individualism has reached today is the end-result of a program of de-socialization written by the Roman papacy. To borrow from Joseph Henrich’s remarkable book, The WEIRDest People in the World, to which I will return: “by undermining intensive kinship, the Church’s marriage and family policies gradually released individuals from the responsibilities, obligations, and benefits of their clans and houses.”[2] Over many generations, this social engineering wired our uniquely individualistic psychology.

It may sound counter-intuitive to blame Christianity for the loss of kinship bonds, since practicing Christians are today the defenders of family values in the West. That is because of the paradox that Christianity is both revolutionary and conservative. It was revolutionary at the beginning, and conservative at the end. All established religions are conservative, that is their main social function. But Western Christianity’s conservatism is about preserving what little kinship structure it didn’t destroy in its revolutionary stage: the nuclear family, the last step before complete social disintegration.[3]

…What shall we compare the Weird West to? To a piece of ground yielding a miraculous harvest that left its anthropological soil barren and toxic? Or perhaps to a doped athlete or artist who now has to pay for his success with his health. There is no question that the almost superhuman boost in energy and creativity that the West got from its Christian-inspired individualism did come with a heavy price. We have been high, but we are now starting to experience the withdrawal symptoms. And possibly the irreversible brain damage. Anthropological reality (otherwise known as human nature) is catching up. We have constructed a new world, but now discover that it has deconstructed us as human beings.

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Guyénot is one of our most interesting and provocative writers on Western history, its downfall and the religious roots thereof. Above I have excerpted a few paragraphs that can provide the gist of his essay but I hope not a substitute for reading it and his other works. ABN

UPDATE: I should mention that I believe the importance of clans and lineages and races will go away when eugenic manipulation of gametes and zygotes becomes common. One day soon, there will also be digital manipulations of cell lines and gestation in pods which will provide perfect environments for fetal development. This technology is closer than many realize. It will produce people with IQs higher than any human who has ever lived and bodies as perfect as any that has ever existed. When in maybe fifty years, people are able to fine tune their offspring to produce the best qualities imaginable, ‘Darwinian’ lineages and relationships will become a thing of the past overnight and our concerns today will seem as important as those of homo habilis of 1.5 million years ago. Positively no one will care. ABN