The Origin of Individualism

As is mentioned in Introduction, the origin of American Individualism can be traced back to the beginning years in its history, when first American immigrants came to the North American continent looking for better life and shaking off they yoke of European feudal tradition and the oppression from all kinds of powerful classes. It is determined that there were elements of Anti-oppression and searching for freedom in American people’s character. This was the original explanation of American Individualism.

Although the term “Individualism” was not in general use until the 1820s, the foundational principles behind the concept were established by the mid-eighteenth century. Enlightenment philosophers like Newton and Locke argued that the universe is arranged in an orderly system, and that by the application of reason and intellect, human beings are capable of apprehending that system. This philosophy represented a radical shift from earlier nations that the world is ordered by a stern, inscrutable God whose plans are beyond human understanding and whose will can only be known through religious revelation. Enlightenment philosophy encouraged thinkers like Franklin and Jefferson to turn to Deism, a religion that privileges reason over faith and rejects traditional religious tents in favor of a general belief in a benevolent creator. By privileging human understanding and the capacity of the individual, these new ideas recorded the way people thought about government, society and rights.

Thus the Declaration of Independence is taken as the embodiment of the eighteenth-century regard for the interests of the individual. Taking as unquestionably “Self-evident” the idea that “all men are created equal”[12] P503, the Declaration of Independence made the rights and potential of the individual the cornerstone of American values. The fact that these lines from the Declaration of Independence are among the most quoted in all of American letters testifies to the power of this