An omnipresent figure in sociology, has the individual nevertheless been thought of in a stable and homogeneous manner? Is the history of the individual confused with that of autonomy and modernity?
Federico Tarragoni’s book constitutes a substantial and educational synthesis, a stimulating reflection on the issues of the individual, individualization and individualism. The ambition is twofold since it involves tracing the conceptual trajectory of the notions of individual and individualism since the writings of the founders of sociology as well as the evolution of the place of the individual in our societies. The author refers in particular to the advent of the first modernity initiated in XVIIIe century that leads to the liberation of individuals from traditional guardianships in favor of institutions and that of the second modernity which, due to the crisis of institutions and the renewal of values, calls into question the previous model: the individual is now more reflexive, singular but also uncertain. Nevertheless, Tarragoni contests that the condition of the individual is marked by a continuous historical process leading to increasing autonomy and thereby undermines the idea that our contemporary Western societies embody the acme of the free and autonomous individual in opposition to a stereotyped past and elsewhere.
The teleological narrative of the advent of the individual
The book opens with a historical exploration of the individual, thus highlighting the ways in which historians have challenged the linear sociological narrative on the advent of the modern individual. While historians perceive the premises of individuality at the time of the Renaissance and frequently equate the end of the old regime and the emancipation of societies with the affirmation of the individual, historians restore various figures of individuality such as the actor, the poet during Greek Antiquity or the subject of law under the Roman Empire. They also show that the invention of purgatory in the Middle Ages as well as the sacrament of extreme unction lead the believer to perceive himself as responsible for his salvation. The Protestant Reformation consolidates this vision of a believer-individual facing God. The artist, the figure par excellence of the Renaissance, also refers to the affirmation of an individuality. The Renaissance thus appears as a key stage in the process of the emergence of the individual, all the more so since “Western” man imposes himself as a mirror of the “savage” that we then discover on other continents. XIXe century, Romanticism affirms the personal authenticity that each individual can promote through an aesthetic and loving experience. Thus, innovations in the field of religious dogma, artistic creation or new views on the world contribute to shaping an individual who becomes the object of the sociological discipline at the beginning of the XXe century.
The individual in the classics of sociology
Federico Tarragoni’s exploration continues with a re-examination of the sociological tradition through the prism of the place it grants to the individual.
Thus, Émile Durkheim affirmed that individualization was only made possible by a work of socialization: in his eyes the individual gained autonomy because he had been shaped by institutions and because he was inserted within a multitude of social processes. Excessive individuation or the lack of supervision of the individual would cause a disruption in the functioning of society and thereby the suffering of individuals, which Durkheim referred to as anomie. Tarragoni underlines the paradox of Durkheimian theory: while the individual was at its center, the sociologist paid very little attention to him, ignoring for example his emotions and representations. Without doubt, Durkheim wanted to affirm the specificity of his discipline in relation to psychology. In the French school of sociology, it was Maurice Halbwachs who gave full place to the lived dimension of social phenomena. By studying memory, he has shaped an object within which the collective and the individual constantly intersect.
German and American sociology paid more attention to individuals as singular beings. Weber and Simmel innovated with a theory of modernity based on a method of analysis at the level of the individual. As for Norbert Elias, he explained how the individual, subjected to social control, was led to repress his impulses and adopt a behavior that was in line with that expected of him in public. In this way, he developed his “inner self”, even if the author of The society of individuals considered that the expression of all singularity had its origins in the social sphere.
The revival of the sociology of the individual
Federico Tarragoni devotes a chapter to recent sociological trends, some of which diagnose an unprecedented autonomy of the individual. The singularity that characterizes the contemporary individual is the product of the cultural emancipation movements that emerged from the 1960s, the erosion of institutions, and the affirmation of the subject as a specific being. With the second modernity, individuals distance themselves from the cold institutions that structured them until then, each inventing their own subjective path. Rather than letting themselves be shaped according to abstract social roles, individuals resort to a set of knowledge and techniques about themselves (psychology, sophrology, etc.) that allow them to develop their social practices and define their personal identity.
In this respect, the contemporary autonomous and reflexive individual finds himself in an ambivalent situation. For some sociologists, distancing himself from institutions allows him to construct himself as a singular subject and to develop his personal emotional, professional or spiritual project. For others, this autonomy leads to solitude and anxiety, in particular that of “not living up to the ideal of oneself”.
For Tarragoni, the weight of individual reflexivity should not be overestimated: works that “emphasize a cultural transformation at work exaggerate its scope.” And if individuals rely on these new “reflexive resources,” we can bet that identity socialization has already shaped the individual in a more profound way. The individual acts, develops choices throughout his existence according to social relationships that both constrain and protect him. It is notably through the various sociabilities within which he is confined that the individual perceives himself as a singular being and it is through the links that he develops that he gains social recognition.
In conclusion, the author of Sociologies of the individual recommends that we “reject all the approaches from above in which the lived dimension of social phenomena disappears and especially the capacity of the actors to re-elaborate it and thereby participate in social change”. In addition, he enjoins us to distinguish very clearly the ideology which is nestled in the concepts of individual and individualism of our societies, from the approach aiming to empirically identify the forms, practices and representations of individual autonomy.
If Tarragoni invites us to think of the social world on an individual scale, he indicates that this approach does not mean adhering to the postulate of the victory of the individual and individualism. In this regard, the author warns us against a “Western-centric and monolithic narrative”, approaching “a form of ideology” prophesying the inevitable emancipation of individuals.
The individual does not exist only in the West
Sociologists working in non-Western areas can only welcome the deconstruction carried out by Tarragoni to the extent that the representation of societies that have (definitively) emancipated individuals is accompanied by a mirror perception of societies where the community (still) reigns. The world would then be divided in a dichotomous manner between a modern West and a traditional East. In these “holistic” societies, forms of individuality would be stifled by the family, the tribe, the community, religion or authoritarianism. However, if the influence of these institutions or that of the political regime are obviously to be taken into account, it is also necessary to consider that the Algerian, Chinese or Iranian individual is constructed despite – and perhaps even through – these constraints. Revisiting the forms of individuation through the oscillations between conformism and transgression on both the social and political levels is particularly fruitful. The “strange individuals” that we meet in the South sometimes have to redouble their efforts to assert themselves as such. As Danilo Martuccelli explains, in Latin America, society cannot count on an institutional program that has been widely implemented in European countries. In Africa or Asia, the figure of the believer, that of the political opponent or the artist sometimes face censorship or repression. Do these trials not forge paths of individuation? Reconsidering the trajectory of the “Western” individual without confining him to the assurance of the triumph of individualism will perhaps contribute to grasping the “Oriental” individual with greater subtlety. What is more, the study of the latter allows us to ask new questions about the functioning of our own societies since one of the keys to the sociological approach lies precisely in comparison. The analysis of French sociologists, often limited to French and European societies, would be enriched by broadening its perspective. The disciplinary divisions and fields of study are instructive in this respect: “(w)e too frequently do our history and their ethnology, the sociology of our individuals and the anthropology of their crops. “
Thus, the Arab Spring offers a stimulating opportunity to move away from the Western model – as Tarragoni invites us to do without risking it himself in this book – and to examine the demands and strategies of aspirants to democratic citizenship. To everyone’s surprise, in 2011, “undifferentiated masses” of individuals emerged who claimed their dignity and freedom. The figures of the protesters appeared in the guise of individuals: students, bloggers, young women defying social and political prohibitions, exposing their bodies to police blows, sometimes to gunfire or to the abuse of the security services. The individual and democracy seemed to be on the move in the Arab world. However, hope has dried up in many countries, prey to the influx of Islamists, the return of authoritarianism or the outbreak of civil wars. It seems then that these forms of control and violence crush the individual and his democratic project – if the latter is no longer visible, it is not necessarily destroyed. If we turn our gaze towards Algeria which went through all these stages from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s, the mobilization at the beginning of 2019 against a fifth term for President Bouteflika and for the establishment of a democratic regime reveals these individuals producing an autonomous (and often humorous) expression, asserting themselves as citizens. As Giulia Fabbiano invites us to do, we must “listen to the insurgent Algeria” and to the singular individuals who compose it and who, if they were not visible, had not disappeared.