I don't think either the early Christians or the Romans believed in anything approaching modern notions of individualism though. Early Christianity and the Bible very much assume the unit of humanity is the tribe not the individual, and the Romans for all their faults very much believed in a Rome more important than any individual Roman. Not every aspect of European culture comes from the Romans and Christianity it's been 2000 years they've had other ideas since
Individualism I would argue was one of the ideas that the early bourgeoise put forward to sever themselves from feudalism which in theory if not always in practice believed in a strict hierarchy where everyone had set duties towards everyone else.
Romans for all their faults very much believed in a Rome more important than any individual Roman
Eh. They espoused the notion publicly, as a means of cultivating a loyal volunteer military and a unified body politic. But there wasn't a shortage of Roman narcissists in the Republican Period. The Empire was absolutely rife with them.
I'm not saying selfishness is new I'm saying the idea of individualism being a societal value wasn't a Roman cultural value like it is an American one how the individual Romans acted isn't entirely the point as I was discussing how the Roman culture believed someone should act
Sure. Protestant Work Ethic Individualism wasn't really a thing. But the idea of the Roman Tribe, particularly in the later era, was far more about one's immediate family than one's national allegiance or ethnicity. The ideas of patriarchy and filial loyalty, self-aggrandizement and demagoguery, and individual stoic virtue were well established.
You didn't have the same kind of western colonial frontiersman icons. But you definitely had the core idea of the ubermensch - the Herculean/Spartan champion, the Marcus Aurelius styled philosopher stoic, and the Marcus Licinius Crassus proto-libertarian business tyrant - already operating within the empire. These icons are routinely invoked by modern-day individualist ideologues. So I imagine an American in Julius Caeser's Court would be more relatable than you give him credit.
I'm not saying they did. I'm arguing that would ultimately provides the social conditions to generate that in Europe and not elsewhere is the fusion of a religion about selflessly loving your neighbors, an extreme response to Roman occupation, on top of the Roman notions of property, which were some of the most total and violent invented by that point.
the idea that children are the property of the father (here they have made mild progress by making them the shared property of both parents) is I will grant you one the Romans shared but it wasn't unique to the Romans and as I understand it was a common one in the early agricultural societies in the region.
Also it's deeply reductive and somewhat idealist to put these ideas continued existence on the Romans or Christianity as both of those cultural influences also introduced ideas that have been dropped as well as the fact that the way people thought about them over a thousand years ago was pretty much unrecognisable. Material conditions such as the economics of the settler colonial homesteads and the birth of capitalism contributed significantly to the ideas of individualism
I don't think either the early Christians or the Romans believed in anything approaching modern notions of individualism though. Early Christianity and the Bible very much assume the unit of humanity is the tribe not the individual, and the Romans for all their faults very much believed in a Rome more important than any individual Roman. Not every aspect of European culture comes from the Romans and Christianity it's been 2000 years they've had other ideas since
Individualism I would argue was one of the ideas that the early bourgeoise put forward to sever themselves from feudalism which in theory if not always in practice believed in a strict hierarchy where everyone had set duties towards everyone else.
Eh. They espoused the notion publicly, as a means of cultivating a loyal volunteer military and a unified body politic. But there wasn't a shortage of Roman narcissists in the Republican Period. The Empire was absolutely rife with them.
I'm not saying selfishness is new I'm saying the idea of individualism being a societal value wasn't a Roman cultural value like it is an American one how the individual Romans acted isn't entirely the point as I was discussing how the Roman culture believed someone should act
Sure. Protestant Work Ethic Individualism wasn't really a thing. But the idea of the Roman Tribe, particularly in the later era, was far more about one's immediate family than one's national allegiance or ethnicity. The ideas of patriarchy and filial loyalty, self-aggrandizement and demagoguery, and individual stoic virtue were well established.
You didn't have the same kind of western colonial frontiersman icons. But you definitely had the core idea of the ubermensch - the Herculean/Spartan champion, the Marcus Aurelius styled philosopher stoic, and the Marcus Licinius Crassus proto-libertarian business tyrant - already operating within the empire. These icons are routinely invoked by modern-day individualist ideologues. So I imagine an American in Julius Caeser's Court would be more relatable than you give him credit.
I'm not saying they did. I'm arguing that would ultimately provides the social conditions to generate that in Europe and not elsewhere is the fusion of a religion about selflessly loving your neighbors, an extreme response to Roman occupation, on top of the Roman notions of property, which were some of the most total and violent invented by that point.
the idea that children are the property of the father (here they have made mild progress by making them the shared property of both parents) is I will grant you one the Romans shared but it wasn't unique to the Romans and as I understand it was a common one in the early agricultural societies in the region.
Also it's deeply reductive and somewhat idealist to put these ideas continued existence on the Romans or Christianity as both of those cultural influences also introduced ideas that have been dropped as well as the fact that the way people thought about them over a thousand years ago was pretty much unrecognisable. Material conditions such as the economics of the settler colonial homesteads and the birth of capitalism contributed significantly to the ideas of individualism