ABSTRACT

Ian Burkitt has called ‘the idea that there is a basic division between society and the individual … a nonsense’ (1991: 189). If he’s right – and on balance, depending on what he means by ‘division’, I think he is – why is it such plausible and popular nonsense, is as attractive to social theorists as to folk-in-the-street? Are the concepts and issues involved in thinking about individuality and collectivity so obscure, and so difficult, that gross simplification is the only way to deal with them? Perhaps. Leaving ‘collectivity’ to one side for discussion elsewhere, the previous chapter has left unresolved some important matters to do with individuality and selfhood.