The belief that the individual freedom of a person is sacred is newer than what many think. In the past, people instead thought of their part in whatever social unit they belonged to. This included family, tribe, nation, race, etc. Where you were from and who your father is mattered more than what you personally believed or wanted. What social class you were born into would later define what you did for the rest of your life.
Today, the past is often abhorred by us "post-modernists." If anything suggests a small threat to our individualist ideas and values, we often respond with hostility. No one dares to critique their neighbors way of life or worldview. Such an action often results in following offense and hostility. You can do anything as long as you do not threaten the freedoms of your fellow man. Conformity is viewed as weakness. In fact, it is a grave offense to be accused of conformity. This unspoken rule of respect for others' individualism can be summed up like this: "All beliefs are special, just don't claim it has objective truth."
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To an extent, individualism can be a good thing. We all should have a freedom to differ in our beliefs and lifestyles. The problem strikes when everything becomes relative. One of the worst results of an increasingly secular world is triviality of truth. That beautiful word which put things into objective positions is slowly being destroyed as more come to the belief that truth is relative. Relative individualism results from this. There is, according to our post modernism, no "truth" we should live by. The belief that some lifestyles or worldviews are better than others is being abolished. Truth has been replaced with the logic of feeling. I hear this phrase a lot: "that may be what you think, but this way of life feels better to me."
There can be dangerous consequences to this. Without a grounded objective reality, individualism becomes whatever anyone thinks of it. We have cases of history where man takes his own individual morality into his own hands. "I want to raise a generation devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless, and cruel." Those were the words of Hitler as they hung above the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Dostoevsky gives us a clear example of relative individualism in his book Crime and Punishment. After being sentenced to Siberia, the main character, Raskolnikov, dreams a disturbing yet prophetic dream. "The whole world was condemned to suffer a terrible, unprecedented and unparalleled plague... A new kind of trichinae had appeared, microscopic substances that lodged in men's bodies. Yet these were spiritual substances as well, endowed with mind and will. Those infected were seized immediately and went mad. Yet people never considered themselves so clever and unhesitatingly right as these infected ones considered themselves. Never had they considered their decrees, their scientific deductions, their moral convictions and beliefs more firmly base... each thought the truth was in him alone... They did not know whom to bring to trial or how to try him... They did not know whom to condemn or whom to acquit... Everything and everybody went to wreck and ruin."
I beg to ask: once we have destroyed all sense of objective truth and morality, who gets to call the shots? Who has the final say in things? How are we to establish law when everyone thinks differently about what the law should be? Relative individualism establishes the right to all ideas and actions without affirming a right and wrong. If we are to place a heavy emphasis on individual freedom, there has to be an objective sense of right and wrong. Freedom can be a deadly friend when no one sets the rules.
