We live in an individualistic age, and many suspect it does not serve us that well, what with it’s delusions of self-sufficiency that breeds loneliness, and selfishness that fosters alienation. But our attention to the individual is far from all bad. Self-esteem, self-knowledge and self-interest are great goods. So how do we get the balance right? Oscar Wilde provides a clue. He was not individualistic. He had individuality. And that’s very different.
He believed that for an individual to be him- or herself, he or she must have a deep knowledge of others. These are the other people that bear upon your own place and person. Self-knowledge requires an interest in others. Self-esteem comes from reflecting on similarity and difference.
Wilde was awakened to this balance as an outsider; the Irishman in aristocratic London, concealing his same-sex desires. Being an outsider is to be acutely conscious of your relationships with others, and to be aware of how your own sense of self is intimately caught up with their sense of you. Paradoxically, the outsider who appears to be a model of self-sustained independence, as Wilde surely did, is only so because they are sensitive of others. He could not have written such exquisite plays, with his sharply defined characters, had he not had this highly developed capacity.
Individuality also instils in you a lively curiosity about those who differ from the herd. Who are those who are living differently, according to different norms, and so are making something of their lives, not simply falling into the borrowed lives of conformity? They are rounded individuals, because they are able to conduct a kind of dialogue with their times, and from that dialogue forge a distinctive voice.
Wilde’s individuality, then, is a synthesis of his dependency and independence. He called himself an individualist, but that is different from the individualism of more recent times. The individualist does not ride roughshod over others, like a self-sufficient patrician in his carriage who shows callous disregard for the plebs. Rather, the individualist is in the gutter of the age too, only he or she is working with the materials to be found there, and creating a way of life that shines like a star for others.
Mark Vernon’s new book is ‘The Good Life’ (Hodder), in which he explores arresting ideas for the art of living. See thegoodlifequiz.com
Comments