Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c167IR // #c167Synthesis

Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.

— In our words · Source: Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville)

[Use when]

When withdrawal gets mislabeled as selfishness.

[Why it matters]

The distinction that runs the book: individualism is a calm error of judgment, egotism a blind passion. Tocqueville coined the word for the new disease.

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