What good is individuality?

Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.

Mill, Russell and their like would not shut up about “individuality”, and the “expression of individuality”. Is it even valuable? I wrote this blog post to find out.

In this blog, goodness is rightly divided into the virtuous, the useful and the pleasant. I will not care about other conceptions of goodness.

0. Contents

1. Is it virtuous?
2. Is it useful?
3. Is it pleasant?

1. Is it virtuous?

Individuality

Of course it is not virtuous to be a unique person. No one is better for the reason that he is unique.

However, it is more meritorious to attain to a virtue of which no example can be found in your surroundings; and it will, of course, generate more virtue in others if this is done, since there will now be your example.

Expression of individuality

Given the fact of individuality, is it virtuous to express it? In a certain sense it is – it is honest to give others a true idea of who you really are, and honesty is a virtue.

To that extent, to fail to express your individuality by communicating a wrong impression is an evil and a vice; it is a kind of lie. But to fail by communicating nothing is not evil, as long as it does not lead people, by the silence, to assume you are other than you are.

Of course, there is one caveat. An evil man may think that to publicly commit evil deeds will give others a truer impression of who he is, since otherwise they might be deluded into thinking that he is virtuous. It will do so, but of course, he becomes a significantly more evil man by the fact that he does those evil deeds – up until doing them, he has only thought about doing evil deeds, which is not as bad. It would be sufficient to express his degree of viciousness, at that stage, to communicate his evil thoughts in spoken form, ideally in an appropriate setting.

2. Is it useful?

Individuality

Is it useful to be a unique person? It depends what it is you are unique in.

There seems to be no intrinsic usefulness to someone’s having unique likes and dislikes. It may be useful to him if, for instance, his tastes are particular in being cheaper, so that he may derive more enjoyment while spending less money. The opposite case also exists, however.

Unique likes and dislikes may have great extrinsic usefulness insofar as they are a necessary part of a unique personality which is able to have unique talents and create new true knowledge.

It is, of course, very useful to have unique talents, and more useful than if they are similar talents to those of others – this is the law of comparative advantage.

It is also useful to have unique knowledge, since you are then able to teach others things they didn’t know.

Expression of individuality

It is extremely useful to tell your unique knowledge to others, but it becomes less unique in the process – knowledge is still useful, but much less so, if it remains unique. I am not sure if spreading your true knowledge is an expression of individuality, since the more it is expressed, the less it is individual.

Unique talents are, similarly, only actually useful if they are expressed through their practical application.

To express your unique likes and dislikes is, intrinsically, useless to others. It may be useful, to the person expressing them, insofar as it inspires others to create more of the things you like and less of the things you dislike. This, in turn, is also useful to whomever else profits by this production, but it may be a disutility to someone with conflicting likes and dislikes – that is, who dislikes the new things produced, or likes the things of which fewer were produced.

Of course, a man does not generally know for a fact that his likes and dislikes are unique. If they are not, in fact, unique, they may serve to acquire friendships, as common likes and dislikes often do. There is, therefore, good reason for people to share their likes and dislikes when they think that they might not be unique.

3. Is it pleasant?

Individuality

Is it pleasant to be unique, and different from others?

I think not. Generally, people tend to resent the fact that they are different from everyone else, that no one quite understands them, that they are alone in this world. Others will also resent him for it – people often seem to dislike others for the main reason of their being different.

However, some people seem to take a perverted pleasure in being unique. If you are unique in a sense which clearly makes you better than others, it is, of course, not perverted to take some pleasure in being better, although this can lead to the evil of pride if done wrongly. But some people seem to cope with the loneliness of being unique by supposing that their difference makes them better when it really doesn’t.

Expression of individuality

I think it is clearly pleasant to express yourself. This is, I think, the principal reason why Russell and Mill valued it.

Is it pleasant to others? It is, of course, pleasant in all the ways it is useful – it is pleasant to benefit from someone else’s unique talents or unique knowledge.

I think it is also pleasant in the way it is virtuous – people may appreciate the expression of someone else’s unique personality for the principal reason of the fact that it is true. They may say that it gives them insight into human nature, or at least into the nature of one human person.

The caveat from the usefulness section applies – people may not know for a fact that they are unique, and expressing themselves may allow them to make friends by finding out that they are not, in fact, unique.

The caveat from the virtuousness section also applies – it is usually not pleasant when a vicious man “expresses” his vice, which is, of course, nothing but to bring his vice further into actual existence.