I think the only really important value individualism has comes from the fact that most if not all of the greatest advances in human history have been brought into play by the dogged genius of very particular individuals. From their endeavours would come vast benefits for others.

In short, true individualism services the masses. Beyond that it is hard to see how individualism has much of a contribution to make to anything. Although many may don the pretensions of self determination and assert their individuality, really the vast majority are sheep-like conformists able to go along with the general sway without much difficulty. Sometimes I get the feeling that with them that if they were put in a time capsule and dropped back into the 14th Century, they would soon adapt such is their lack of moral purpose or anything that resembles a truly centred orientation.

In the modern age, individualism - that I have freedom of expression, will not be told what to do, that I live life on my own terms and all that bullshit. - to me seems like one great pretension. The modern individual is just as conformed as any other. He is just more deluded about identity than in previous ages. True individuals can think outside the context. They can summon the imagination and see what might be a better way and as a consequence bring about some improvement. These are the genuinely unique persons and it is because of what they contribute that individualism as an idea still needs to be kept alive and well. Societies that deliberately suppress creativity are inevitably over-coercive and soon become deficient in important ways. Eventually they cease to move on.

However, as I've said before, once all of the advances necessary for decent existence have been arrived at - and I do think the time will come when most of the problems of elemental life that have historically blighted the human condition have been solved - then we will have truly high-functioning societies. Only then would there be no need to always have a place for individualism. Such societies wouldn't have to be unduly coercive and would for the most part serve the lives of individuals as opposed to frustrate them. The creations of past-age genius would always be there remaining fully integrated in the world perhaps with only the occasional update or amendment required. Overly creative individuals in such a society would tend to subvert it and be something of a nuisance.

Hitherto attempts at collectivism, from Christianity to communism, have tried to act as if what I have just described is possible by just identifying it or announcing it, and then making demands that people live by the associated codes and practices. This is nonsense. Such a thing can only ever be evolutionary. It can only happen in its own time. Progress in the broadest sense for humans is woefully slow. It took them twenty thousand years to learn how to plough a field and a further ten to learn the importance of limiting power through democracy. They are still fighting over whether that is a good thing with no sign of a truce in the immediate future. It will take another ten or twenty thousand before all the inherited genetic damage can be flushed out and anything like what I am proposing become a reality.

Question is: can humans refrain from being at each others throats long enough for such a world to come into being? Can they avert the real danger of wiping each other out? Worse still, will the hostile universe beyond manage not to inflict some kind of galactic catastrophe on the rather vulnerable creatures that inhabit the planet Earth?