Charles Brown wrote:
Perhaps the individuals of individualistic capitalism are the historic
product of the contradictions of class divided society.
But individuals are also the made in intimacy , not only in that
babies are
born of intimacy, but essential character of the intimates
themselves is
developed in intimate relations. The one is the product of the two,
the
social cell of two people
Marx means something specific by "individuality." The specific
meaning is indicated by the idea of "true individuality," of "free
individuality," as the "universally developed individual." This is
the individual with the fully developed "capabilities" required for
that activities that define "the realm of necessity" and "the true
realm of freedom" of an ideal republic. Such development involves
"an incalculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral
powers." As conceived by Marx, the human historical process is an
"educational" process of internally related stages through which this
development occurs. This process substitutes rational self-
determination for instinctive determination.
“Relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneous at the
outset) are the first social forms, in which human productive
capacity develops only to a slight extent and at isolated points.
Personal independence founded on objective [sachlicher] dependence is
the second great form, in which a system of general social
metabolism, of universal relations, of all-round needs and universal
capacities is formed for the first time. Free individuality, based on
the universal development of individuals and on their subordination
of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the
third stage. The second stage creates the conditions for the third.
Patriarchal as well as ancient conditions (feudal, also) thus
disintegrate with the development of commerce, of luxury, of money,
of exchange value, while modern society arises and grows in the same
measure.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm
“It has been said and may be said that this is precisely the beauty
and the greatness of it: this spontaneous interconnection, this
material and mental metabolism which is independent of the knowing
and willing of individuals, and which presupposes their reciprocal
independence and indifference. And, certainly, this objective
connection is preferable to the lack of any connection, or to a
merely local connection resting on blood ties, or on primeval,
natural or master-servant relations. Equally certain is it that
individuals cannot gain mastery over their own social
interconnections before they have created them. But it is an insipid
notion to conceive of this merely objective bond as a spontaneous,
natural attribute inherent in individuals and inseparable from their
nature (in antithesis to their conscious knowing and willing). This
bond is their product. It is a historic product. It belongs to a
specific phase of their development. The alien and independent
character in which It presently exists vis-à-vis individuals proves
only that the latter are still engaged in the creation of the
conditions of their social life, and that have not yet begun, on the
basis of these conditions, to live it. It is the bond natural to
individuals within specific and limited relations of production.
Universally developed individuals, whose social relations, as their
own communal [gemeinschaftlich] relations, are hence also
subordinated to their own communal control, are no product of nature,
but of history. The degree and the universality of the development of
wealth where this individuality becomes possible supposes production
on the basis of exchange values as a prior condition, whose
universality produces not only the alienation of the individual from
himself and from others, but also the universality and the
comprehensiveness of his relations and capacities. In earlier stages
of development the single individual seems to be developed more
fully, because he has not yet worked out his relationships in their
fullness, or erected them as independent social powers and relations
opposite himself. It is as ridiculous to yearn for a return to that
original fullness [22] as it is to believe that with this complete
emptiness history has come to a standstill. The bourgeois viewpoint
has never advanced beyond this antithesis between itself and this
romantic viewpoint, and therefore the latter will accompany it as
legitimate antithesis up to its blessed end.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm
So "true individuality" in Marx's sense could not have existed at the
beginning of human history. Moreover, the idea is rooted in an
ontology that's inconsistent with the ontology underpinning neo-
Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Ted
