ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to provide a view of collectivism and individualism that can be used throughout the world. It seems to be supported by studies of beliefs, attitudes, and values carried out in many cultures. English political philosophers of the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries used the terms individualism and collectivism for the first time. In the eighteenth century the individualistic ideas of the American Revolution and the French Revolution provoked reactions that were termed collectivism. The individualism of John Locke was countered by the collectivism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in his Social Contract argued that the individual is free only by submitting to the general will. A major recent development in philosophy is the exploration of the possibilities of communitarian societies, in which some of the desirable attributes of both individualism and collectivism are combined. The individualistic cultures emphasized goals like self-sufficiency and self-glorification; the collectivist cultures emphasized the good of the ingroup.
