This essay will briefly sketch two alternative interpretations of recent Western history, involving different evaluations of individualism and other Western values, and different concepts of the Bahá'í society which we are building. The views which it describes are both very much my own: I have briefly sketched here my argument with myself. Some years ago, when I was studying at a Catholic Seminary, I was strongly influenced by the Liberation theologians, whose critique of Western society and individualistic theology was in turn very much influenced by Marxist critiques of Western capitalism. As time goes by, and history works itself out, I have begun to think that this view of modern Western society, or modern Western history, may be 180º wrong. The question comes down to deciding whether some key trends in post-enlightenment history are part of the creative, or the disintegrative, processes which we know are occurring. What I am beginning to question is a view shared by Marxists, many Liberation theologians, and some Bahá'ís, who see the individuation of society which accelerated so sharply at the enlightenment as a disintegrative, negative, movement. Individuation is seen as, at best, the regrettable side-effect of epistemological freedom, a side-effect for which remedies are sought. Medieval society had been integrated: the people and the land, the workers and their produce, the classes of society, the church and the community, were bound in coherent (i.e., meaningful) relationships. These relationships have been radically disrupted, and we are in search of a new basis on which the integrated society can be re-established. Materialism is the replacement of the principle of position which characterised feudal society by the principle of property–a principle which no longer gives everyone a place, however lowly, because it is a principle of things. Individualism is a disintegrative philosophy on which nothing can be built. In literature, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot express this backward-looking philosophy most forcefully, not advocating a return to the past, but looking to the society of the past–the integrated society–for their model of what a society is. We see this in their use of images of past "ideal" societies in the Cantos and Four Quartets, and in the gestures towards an integrated model in The Rock. According to this view, the integrated but technologically inferior societies of the world are being swamped and destroyed by the virus of individualism which accompanies the spread of Western society. In Pound in particular, but also in Eliot's Gerontion, this is linked to the mixing of cultures and classes which has characterized Europe since WWI. The relativizing effect of multi-cultural environments frees and requires individuals to create their own identities. In theology, the critique of individualism means "grass-roots communities," a theological critique of the competitive basis of capitalism as sinful, a view of the individual as essentially social (the human exists only as a social animal, we are "becoming human together"), and of sin and salvation as social phenomena: original sin is the structural sin of society which distorts our humanity. In the Bahá'í version of this, Western society is progressively disintegrating as its religion loses force, and excessive individualism is one of the secondary causes of the disintegration–perhaps the characteristic ill of Western society. This disintegrative process represents the negative phase of a cyclic evolution whose overall thrust is towards ever larger circles of integration, from the family group to the clan, from clan to city-state to nation and ultimately to world integration. Where other religions have offered individual salvation, the Bahá'í Faith offers social salvation. Perhaps I have set up something of a straw man. The nostalgic nature of this view of pre-enlightenment/pre-capitalist society ought to immediately awake our suspicion, as should its close alliance with Marxist views of social dynamics. There are logical difficulties in saying that Western society is based on an individualistic ethos which is basically a-social or even anti-social, a contradiction of what it is to be a society, while the evidence of our eyes is that, since the enlightenment, Western societies have flourished, have merged into Western Society (with a conscious or unconscious capital letter), and are, indeed, threatening to swamp all others. Either Western Society is not based on individualism, or individualism is not so much at odds with the foundations of social existence as we had thought. Which of these is true is a question of definitions: if we define individualism narrowly in its destructive manifestations, we will find that it is not really basic, perhaps not even common, in Western society. If we define it broadly as the recognition that fundamental values are individual, that the collective gains its life from its members and not vice-versa, then we will find (see below) that it is not really destructive. Before I turn this all on its head to see what it looks like the other way up, it might be worth considering what is at stake from the Bahá'í point of view. It is partly a question of getting our bearings: we know that everything is changing, that there are integrative and disintegrative forces at work, etc. – what we need to know is which is which, and what direction we are heading in. But the question has implications which go further than our intellectual orientation. In every particular place the Faith must relate to the culture and environment of that place – Islamic or Chinese, new country or old world, wealth or poverty. But an influence, at the least, from Western/enlightenment/liberal values is the almost universal common factor. So what is at stake is our stance towards our environment. Our attitude to our physical environment – to the good things of the world and the enjoyment of the senses – is very positive. We can expect that this will, in the long term, shape the Bahá'í community into forms very different to those taken by religious communities which have a fundamental distrust of material creation and bodily enjoyments. Our relation to our social environment, while not so long-lasting, can be expected to have a similar effect. If we begin with the concept that the enlightenment was a wrong turn in history, unleashing forces of liberalism, relativism, individualism and rationalism which must lead to social disintegration, then the community's relation to its human surroundings will develop into an analogy of those extreme Calvinist villages which still survive in the North of Holland. If, on the other hand, we can conceive of medieval society as the declining phase of the cycle, and the enlightenment and its spreading consequences as the spiritual springtime, producing an infant modern Western society which gradually extends itself in many directions, frequently falling down as it learns to walk but gradually learning the lessons demanded of it by the new age – then our attitude to the human world must be basically different. Naturally this will affect not only the character-formation of the Bahá'í community, but also its immediate involvement with the world, with non-Bahá'ís and non-Bahá'í institutions. On a more abstract level, it is a question of the degree of continuity which we can expect between (historically) recent developments in the world and the new world order. The Bahá'í community is intended to be "in the vanguard of the constructive forces at work on the planet." We must then identify these forces. A healthy scepticism of the Marxist critique of Western societies would appear to be indicated: Marxism itself is an example of a mistaken assessment of the nature of Western society leading, in reaction, to a disastrous alternative model. The Marxist critique has been widely used as a means of avoiding the effort, the risk, and the changes in power structure, which the application of the concept of individual responsibility to a social structure entails. We have seen assorted obnoxious dictatorships arguing that freedom of information is a Western concept, one-party states arguing that pluralist democracy is "Western," outrageous oligarchies using the label "Western" to avoid any devolution of power. I hope that the use of "Western" as a pejorative label is coming to an end–it seems hardly credible anymore. The problem now is to distinguish, first those characteristics of Western society that have led to its great strength, and then–among the many problems of Western society–which are frictional problems relating to the lag between moral means (freedoms) and moral maturity, and which are structural failures. In addition to our "character formation" and our stance in relation to the world, there are several internal questions which will be affected by the view we take of modern Western society. Discussions within the Bahá'í community of freedom of the press, the equality of men and women, modesty and morality issues, and others, have been affected by accusations of influence by Western cultural values. If we ask whether Western cultural values might be good values–i.e. anonymous Bahá'í values–some of these debates will be affected. Finally, the change in human consciousness which we call the enlightenment is the most decisive force shaping our present society–its effects are still being worked out. In particular it has affected the relationship of the individual and society. Working out how we feel about that has to be of interest to us all as individuals. Let us say then that the question is worth asking. I have set up a composite straw-man, mixing Bahá'í views with Marxist and Liberation theology critiques. According to my summary, this view sees the evolutionary thrust of history as towards increasing socialisation and integration, and those trends which we associate with the Enlightenment, Liberalism, Westernism, etc., as a turning-aside from this great plan. Now I'll stand the straw-man on his head, beginning with the concept of evolution. Suppose that evolution is marked not by increasing integration, but by increasing individuation. Grains of sand exist individually, but they are only individuated numerically. Amoebas are more or less the same. Sand and amoebas cannot be said to have any degree of unity–only degrees of identity. A complex and developed ecosystem consists of many individuated species, and the more complex and abler species consist of individuated members: wild dogs and baboons, for instance, form societies in which some members, even to an outsider, clearly have individual characteristics. Because they are much more strongly individuated they can also have a kind of unity, and can work collectively. Equally, they can have disunity, conflict, can dominate or be excluded from the group. Amoebas do not form societies. We can see an evolutionary trend towards individuation, and we see that individuation and social cohesion do not appear to be in conflict, or even to be balancing forces. Social structures arise from individuation, and are dependent on individuation. Where the Greek philosophical tradition has regarded the particularities of individual members of a genus as accidents, of no great importance or even as marking a degeneration from the form which should ideally be common to all members of the genus, inthis view the individuality of a thing is precisely the mark of God upon it: When, however, thou dost contemplate the innermost essence of all things, and the individuality of each, thou wilt behold the signs of thy Lord's mercy...(1)

The process of individuation reaches the moral level in the human being, who, as an adult at least, has the potential for individual responsibility. In addition to maturity, the individual requires certain means to exercise moral responsibility: material means (e.g. the right of property) and intellectual means (e.g. access to information). In the development of the child, and of the species, we see the means and the responsibility, like individuation and unity, spiralling upwards. The sphere of individual responsibility has successively widened, as the extent of the unity sought has increased. A "Western" society is a society which relies on and ensures the adulthood (i.e. the individual responsibility) of its members in the spheres first of economic activity (capitalism), then of religion (the Reformation) and politics (democracy). This individual responsibility is a tremendous source of personal growth and motivation, and thus of energy for the civilization. We can see that, in history, the development is towards greater specialisation, greater individuation, greater recognition of the autonomy and value of the individual. Individuation is the trend of history. The principle of property is the expression of this, for property is not theft but responsibility. Property rights are human rights, involving choice and therefore moral autonomy, and moral autonomy is the characteristic (adult) human quality. In the development of any one individual the same process is repeated. A new-born baby has marginal individuality. The Liberation theologians would appear to be partly right in saying that the individual per se does not exist, he or she is formed by social relations. But observe the growing child: is not maturity the crystallization of a progressively formed individuality? Individuation is accompanied by moral freedom, in a boot-strap process: moral responsibility (choice, therefore based on freedom) leads to maturity (it individuates the person), which extends the epistemological freedom (the ability to see with your own eyes), which makes the individual morally responsible for what can now be seen. It could be that we have two opposing tendencies here: a natural law leading towards individuation and a religious counter-force working towards the subordination of the individual to the collective. But I suggest that individuation is also the goal of religious history. In the beginning was the tribe, whose members shared one spiritual destiny, mediated by the shaman. If the spirits were pleased, if the totem was well, the tribe prospered. This collectivism is repeated in early Hebrew religion. The great step forward made by the Pharisees (and borrowed by the Christians and Muslims) was to individualise spiritual destiny. However, although salvation was a property now of the individual, it was a mass-produced salvation. Different religions and different theologians might have differing ideas about what salvation was and how it was obtained, but each thought that it was one thing, obtained in one way. Enter the Bahá'í Faith, which replaces the concept of salvation with that of growth: growth is individual, progressive, and relative to the challenges which an individual faces and his or her personal destiny: Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration.(2) and: The good deeds of the righteous are the sins of the Near Ones.(3) An individuated salvation therefore now accompanies individual epistemology. The Enlightenment has greatly extended epistemological freedom and freedom of action: as a result we are more troubled and more morally responsible than our ancestors. As the unitary society of the middle ages has progressively given way to a pluralist, specialised, voluntarist society, each step has been accompanied more or less by disasters. Many of these disasters resulted from turning away from the evolutionary movement to greater individuation, in favour of nationalist, racist, fascist, or communist theories which make the collective the source of the value of the individual, instead of vice-versa. Other disasters have been caused by the process of individuation itself, imperfectly worked out: the capitalist society which Marx criticised, for instance, with its impoverished labour-suppliers and wealthy capital-owners. This particular disaster has been overcome, not by turning against the current of individuation but by the process itself: labour became specialised, an individuated and marketable commodity, instead of being a common good whose supply was limited only by the food available. The capitalists lost their superior bargaining position and the working class no longer had coherent class interests. Capitalist society did not collapse, it grew – and as it has become more specialised, more pluralist, less and less of a unitary state. It has also become more durable and more flexible. It would be a brave person now who predicted its imminent collapse, having seen how it has overcome the challenges posed by its own cleverness. Although a simple condemnation of individualism is not tenable, whether one is looking at the evidence of history or the Bahá'í teachings, it is also not possible just to take the reverse view. For instance, although salvation has become individual, in the sense that we must all fight our own spiritual battles and achieve, or fail to achieve, our own spiritual destinies, it is also true that if some people play with atomic crackers we all begin to glow in the dark. What I am working towards here is a reinterpretation of history, specifically of modern Western history, which will read some characteristically Western trends in world thought which came to the fore in the Enlightenment as positive movements, precursors of the Bahá'í era, rather than as symptoms of degeneracy. Such a view of history will, I have suggested, fundamentally change our attitude to the world, and in some respects affect our understanding of the Faith itself. It will certainly alter our picture of the society which we are building.

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End Notes (Use [BACK] to return to article.) 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa; Bahá'í World Centre, 1978) 41. Proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh (Haifa; Bahá'í World Centre, 1968) 116. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1984) 126.

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