Individualism and the Formation of Values

Abstract

The assumption by educators, theologians, jurists, or others that right behavior can be achieved by the implantation of values in the individual fails to take account of the dynamics of value formation and change and of their relation to the social environment.

Failure to include the social reality as the source of values may be attributed largely to the deeply imbedded focus upon the individual in Western civilization. This focus is found in those explanations which attribute individual behavior to instinct, to drive, to some innate force such as the libido, or to a spiritual connection with some antecedent supernatural power.

Recourse to these sources as explanatory of individual development in any of its aspects is unsatisfactory. Instead, we need to examine the supraindividual cultural mechanisms embodied in the individual's categories of understanding and canons of discrimination. From cultural norms the individual learns how to evaluate and to develop values about himself and the world. Values are acquired through participation with others in groups, and in their manifestation express the qualities of an individual which we call character.