The myth of individualism: From individualisation to a cultural sociology of individualism

This article proposes an alternative to theories of individualisation such as those by Beck, Giddens, and Bauman, and in other forms of subject-oriented sociology that assume a sharp opposition between individual and civil society. Instead, a more cultural-sociological perspective on the individual as a shared value in an individualist culture is elaborated. I follow the French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg who analyses multiple concrete cases to illustrate the nature of contemporary individualism but who is to date not particularly well known to an English-speaking audience. Ehrenberg develops a sociology of individualism that surpasses a ‘realist’ interpretation of the individual-as-actor who constructs his own biography, and instead focuses on the cultural stories or ‘myths’ explaining our view on individuality. Broadening this view beyond this particular sociologist, the article suggests a sociology based on late Durkheimian insights that stress the social nature of our perception of the individual, as well as those of his student, Marcel Mauss. Finally, this also brings us to the fundamental question of the essence of sociological analysis in a time of enhanced emphasis on subjectivity.

Contemporary society is often characterised by sociologists in slightly paradoxical terms as an individualised society. In the 1980s, Ulrich Beck popularised the term ‘individualisation’ in German sociology; ever since, it has been a major influence in the sociological mainstream (Bauman, 2001; Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1991). In the meantime, however, this perspective has been criticised, from the point of view of empirical studies, from a class-theoretical perspective, as well as from a communitarian approach that denies individualisation altogether. In this article, nevertheless, I want to present another critique that is of a cultural-sociological nature and that goes back to the analysis of individualism as a shared value system to be found in the later work of Durkheim.

More specifically, I will focus on one sociologist in particular, who offers a particularly interesting interpretation of this theoretical stance. Alain Ehrenberg is a French sociologist who studies individualism from different societal angles. His statement is the following: ‘Even though human life appears to be more personal, this doesn’t make it less social, less political or less institutional. It is all of this in a different manner’ (Ehrenberg, 2010b, p. 15). Contrary to individualisation theories, his view investigates the cultural values that underlie individuality in contemporary society. He takes the role of individualism seriously as a cultural value system central to the construction of the notion of ‘self’. To date, his main writings in this problem area consist of four volumes. The various forms taken by individualism make up the main topics of Le culte de la performance (1991), L’individu incertain (1995), and La fatigue d’être soi (1998), until his most recent work, La société du malaise (2010b).¹ More particularly, he argues that our increased attention to affectivity, subjectivity and personal development, but also psychological suffering, does not imply that individuals are gradually becoming more isolated, but instead refers to a different, more expressive, shared context of bestowing meaning to identity-related topics.

Despite the fact that Ehrenberg is only one of the many exponents of this perspective (Bell, 1979; Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985; Descombes, 1996; Durkheim, 1898/1973; Dumont, 1983; Houtman, Aupers, & de Koster, 2011; Joas, 2013; Mauss, 1969; Meyer, 2010; Parsons & Sciortino, 2007), I choose to elaborate his perspective here for two reasons: firstly, to give a concrete and detailed image of what a sociology of individualism could be and what the implications are of using such a perspective. Secondly, because of the curious fact of the isolation of contemporary French thought on individualism. Neither Ehrenberg nor the theorists on individualisation mention each other, which is problematic for both sides. With this contribution, I hope to close this gap and to introduce an interesting and important thinker on the subject to an English-speaking audience. My approach to Ehrenberg’s views is based on his own work as well as on a recently conducted unpublished interview.² The argument will be presented as follows. First, I give a broad outline of individualisation theory, followed by the critiques that have so far been formulated. Subsequently, I shall show how a sociology of individualism based on the concept of myth can provide an alternative approach. Finally, a connection will be made to the Durkheimian ‘cult of the individual’ and Maussian notions of the relation between the individual and the social, to open up new trains of thought that could overcome stark agency-structure oppositions in theorising individualism.

Beck, Beck-Gernsheim, Giddens, and Bauman are generally considered the main sociologists on individualisation as an analysis situated in a broader frame of (post)modernity (Dawson, 2012; de Beer & Koster, 2009; Elchardus, 2009). Although we can abstract a general view of individualisation from these four authors, some nuances can nonetheless be distinguished in their approaches. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) give the most systematic account of individualisation in the context of a second and reflexive modernity. Bauman (2000) links individualisation with a consumption-directed society, where values that were once clearly identified or ‘solid’ become liquid. Giddens, on the other hand, gives a more optimistic analysis of individualisation, although he does not use this term, but instead refers to ‘identity in high modernity’, or the transformation of the self into a reflexive and overall unstable project that is greatly furthered by the growing differentiation of time and space and the disembedding of social ties in the wake of the process of globalisation. Additionally, Giddens also points to the importance of expert systems that help to shape the modern self and support it, which makes his version of the individualisation perspective more nuanced.

Notwithstanding the notable differences between them, we can observe a common ground in these theories of individualisation with regard to at least two claims: firstly, that there has been a disembedding from traditional norms pertaining to class, gender, family, and religion. Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002, p. 6), for example, describe this tendency as the disappearing of ‘collective habitualizations’ in a ‘cloud of possibilities to be thought and negotiated’. They simultaneously underline that this ‘dis-embedding’ goes hand in hand with a ‘re-embedding’ of ‘the individualised individual’ in new legal, economic and other regulatory frameworks such as the job market, pension regimes or the welfare state. Secondly, this suggests increased autonomy and responsibility, or even anxiety and risk, for the individual. Identity is no longer a ‘given’ on the basis of belonging to a collective, but has become a ‘task’ (Bauman, 2001, p. 142). Pre-established life paths become ‘do-it-yourself biographies’ (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002, p. 6) systematically emphasise the double character of this increased field of choice as ‘precarious freedom’. The two tendencies are of course related: the premised increase in individual choice or personal agency goes hand in hand with a proportional decrease in sociocultural institutionalisation.

To date, individualisation is no longer an uncontested perspective. Diverse critiques have been formulated, addressing this very broad sociological diagnosis, one that covers multiple tendencies. In the first place, it has been pointed out that a profound empirical testing of this perspective is missing, as Brannen and Nilsen (2005), for example, state: ‘Theory takes on the mantle of “truth” in the absence of the appropriate research evidence.’ De Beer (2007) tries to overcome this shortcoming with comparative research on the basis of the European values study and the World values study (de Beer & Koster, 2009) on the degree of individualisation in twenty-five Western countries. He distinguishes three different processes in his operationalisation of individualisation: de-traditionalisation, emancipation understood as the declining predictability of attitudes by independent variables such as gender, age, and education, and heterogenisation of attitudes in a given population. He concludes that for the last two facets of individualisation, there is no empirical evidence for these twenty-five countries. Gerhards and Rolf’s (2000) study on diverse trends of cultural modernisation (on the basis of the evolution of first names over a period of a hundred years) also relativises individualisation. Especially strongly related to class, the choice of particular names stays related to the specific class a child belongs to. Elchardus (2009) and Elchardus and De Keere (2010) offer a similar observation and conclude that individualisation and de-traditionalisation cannot be equated; the latter is not a sufficient condition for the former. Instead, they observe a new kind of social control that is related to the governing of the self by institutions such as education, mass media, the importance and sophistication of therapeutic practices, and the realm of consumption.

A second critique is related to a class-theoretical or Bourdieusian perspective (Atkinson, 2007; 2010; Goldthorpe, 2002; Houston, 2010; Lehmann, 2009; Mackenzie et al., 2006; Nollmann & Strasser, 2007), but is also being offered from other domains, such as the sociology of the family (for example Poortman & Liefbroer, 2010). According to this approach, theories of individualisation universalise a particular, middle-class ideal of self-expression and autonomy to the population as a whole. Class remains an important variable for predicting attitudes or choices – such as partner choice, for example. While not explicitly dealing with individualisation, Inglehart’s study (1997) had already indicated that it is mostly the new middle classes who embrace post-material values. This critique can be extended to a more Foucauldian-inspired, critical perspective that frames individualisation as an ideological discourse of neoliberalism, an ideal of meritocracy that in reality can only be achieved by the few (Howard, 2007; Lazzarato, 2009). A third potential critique involves the opposite approach to individualisation and points to the importance of new or different kinds of communities in the context of a postmodern culture. Maffesoli (1996) speaks of neo-tribus, where Duyvendak (2009) opts for the term light community.

A last category of remarks, which is, however, seldom related to the debate on individualisation, is situated in the domain of cultural sociology. Unlike the above-cited critiques, this approach does not deny that subjectivity and personal development are central values of our society. However, instead of claiming that a real ‘individualisation’ is taking place, where every individual is becoming more autonomous, aware, and independent of tradition than before, this position claims that it has more to do with the cultural stories about subjectivity people identify with today. This perspective signals the absurdity of the point of departure of individualisation: to present the main premise of sociology, that individuals are shaped by social factors, as a testable hypothesis (Houtman et al., 2011). Instead, it reclaims the alternative perspective of ‘individualism’ as a shared value-system, a concept with a long tradition in sociology. Bell (1979), for example, has pointed out the diverse institutionalisations of individualism in politics, culture and the economy, while Bellah et al. (1985) have opposed utilitarian and expressive individualism in the public and private sphere. Talcott Parsons, furthermore, despite his functionalist leanings, wrote on the historical transition from utilitarian to moral and finally to expressive individualism as a process of gradual institutionalisation (1976/2007). Alain Ehrenberg’s work forms a contemporary elaboration of the cultural-sociological perspective. He offers an alternative to individualisation, developing the approach in his earlier works of analysing individualism through ‘myths’ that give shape to our thought on identity. These myths form a critique of what he in his later works calls ‘individualistic sociology’. While these aspects are in line with a more general cultural-sociological approach of individualism, these concepts also form interesting particularities to Ehrenberg’s theoretical point of departure. In exploring these concepts, I shall compare them with other cultural approaches to better bring to light the specificity of studying individualism by means of ‘myths’. Furthermore, presenting Ehrenberg’s ideas will involve a critical reconstruction of his thought, attempting to place his ideas on the map of contemporary theoretical sociology.

With the concept of myth, Ehrenberg attempts to surpass a realist view of social reality in two related ways.³ First, specifically with regard to myth, he wants to question a simple opposition between true and false cultural entities. A myth in his perspective is not a story that needs to be unmasked in order to uncover a more fundamental reality. Secondly, he uses myth to surpass realism with regard to subjectivity, as, for example, in individualisation theories, to proceed to a more constructivist perspective in a ‘sociology of individualism’.

The concept that is central to Ehrenberg’s alternative to individualisation theory is the concept of ‘mythology’ or ‘myth’. When we modern people hear the word myth, two connotations immediately arise. First, the opposition to ‘rational thinking’; myth is associated with ‘primitive’ modes of explaining ultimate meaning by means of stories. Scientific progress, it is thought, has in contrast brought us beyond this sort of mythological way of thinking. Secondly, a myth is seen as covering up something more fundamental. Ehrenberg, however, claims that our modern society still retains its myths. In his understanding, a myth refers to the stories or the collective representations that a society makes of itself (Ehrenberg, 1991, p. 37). This does not imply that a myth needs to be untrue, nor that science is not one of the powerful modern myths we believe in today. A myth, on the contrary, is a cultural entity that reveals our cultural values. Some of the myths with which Ehrenberg deals are: the spirit of enterprise and the myth of the self-made man; consumption, for example in adventure vacations or the French ‘club med’ phenomenon that emphasises activity, experience, and authenticity; depression and the inability to be active. He also points to ‘reality shows’ as a very public manner of sharing the most intimate stories. Instead of studying these topics for their own sake, Ehrenberg uses them to conduct a general analysis of how the individual is shaped in these manifold contexts, anchored in daily life and common sense.

This approach to ‘myth’ is perhaps most closely related to classical anthropological studies such as the one Geertz (2005) made of cock-fights in Bali or da Matta (1991) made of the Brazilian carnival, or finally, the view of myths taken by Lévi-Strauss (1955), who perceives a cultural myth as the solution to a paradox in daily life by means of a coherent story. In the story, the complexity and contradictory nature of the social world can be simplified and made into a coherent whole that inspires individuals in their search for a narrative for their identity. While Levi-Strauss refers to the Oedipus myth, and Geertz’ and da Matta’s work is on other non-Western cultures, Ehrenberg applies anthropological insights to today’s contemporary individualist myths. In a sense, his work is akin to an anthropology of the contemporary West. Other concepts Ehrenberg uses to refer to these so-called mythologies are ‘imaginary reality’ (Ehrenberg, 1991, p. 19), ‘realistic illusion’ (Ehrenberg, 1991, p. 42), or ‘realistic fiction’ (Ehrenberg, 1991, pp. 40, 66, 92). In other words, ‘myth’ is not reducible to either side of the dichotomy between reality and illusion, but transcends this very distinction.

But what then is its status? Why is it interesting to study a culture by means of its mythologies? Ehrenberg does not wish to unmask our mythologies in a search for something more fundamental; instead, the myth reveals something in itself: ‘[It] is not the (false or not, this is of little importance) representation of a reality, but the translation of a collective belief (un imaginaire). It doesn’t hide anything, but it makes the invisible visible’ (1991, pp. 92–93). In this quotation, we can unravel a reference to Barthes’ (1957) conception of myths. In Barthes’ understanding, a myth conceals the history and the contingency of cultural symbols and instead naturalises them. The myth is not aware of its status as a myth and takes itself to be the undisputable reality, or as Barthes (1957, p. 142) puts it: ‘In it, things lose the memory that they were once made.’ Barthes calls myth ‘de-politicized speech’ that eventually conceals the underlying ‘bourgeois culture’. In Barthes’ view of myth, we can still recognise the Marxist scheme of the economic base and the ideological superstructure. Culture here does not have an autonomous character, but is in the end an ideology derived from a more fundamental economic reality. In several regards, Ehrenberg’s resembles Barthes’ approach to myths. It also takes ordinary, common-sense experience, and its cultural narratives, as its point of departure. However, with regard to the general interpretation they give to myth, these authors differ radically on two points. Firstly, Ehrenberg does not take a moral stance with regard to myth as an ideological reality that must be unmasked. His particular form of cultural sociology leads him to take a value-free position and describe myths as cultural phenomena. Furthermore, in a time in which cultural norms are more difficult to discern, myths offer clearer expressions of cultural narratives. Secondly, Ehrenberg studies myths as autonomous cultural realities that are real in themselves (a realistic fiction), and that do not need to be reduced to something more fundamental.

More specifically, Ehrenberg analyses myths in order to grasp the very complex theme of the individual and the individual’s identity in contemporary society. In times where social reality is becoming more and more opaque, myths offer temporary guidance for orienting ourselves. Our view on identity becomes crystallised in myths, which makes them very interesting to study for sociologists who wish to get a clearer grasp on this theme. To make this more concrete, we can refer to an example Ehrenberg (1991) gives of a mythology where individualism takes on a specific form in the sports spectacle of the football match. On the one hand, the anonymity of the large mass is represented by the public in the gallery; on the other hand, the individual singularity is enacted in its entire splendour by the almost superhuman performance of the sportsmen. These two loci of meaning correspond to two central but contrasting values of individualistic culture, the importance of difference between individuals or their uniqueness, but also their indifference or equality (Ehrenberg, 1991, p. 42). This tension is not only represented by the gallery and the field, but also within the figure of the football player himself. Football is traditionally a sport that is linked to the popular classes, anchored in the first half of the twentieth century, and its history is closely bound up with initiatives by industrial companies. The players are not privileged by birth, but represent the picture of the ordinary man, with whom anyone can identify and who has become an extraordinary individual purely on the basis of his own efforts. Through the players’ modest origins, the message is communicated that this dream lies within the reach of every individual. In this sense, it is analogous to the iconic American dream. Excellence is related to equality in this narrative in an unproblematic manner. Competition in society is translated and enlarged into a physical confrontation of antagonistic forces where the best man wins. Justice and force are depicted as in line with each other. Sport shows us how anybody can become somebody, regardless of his or her gender, race, or class.⁴ In this sense, the mythology of sports tries to answer a typically modern question in an individualistic society: how can one differentiate oneself if everybody is equivalent?

The critical reader would, of course, object that this is a mere façade. Underneath the pretence of equality, we find striking inequality. For example, it is generally known that the big competitions such as the Champions League function on very unequal principles. While 50 years ago small clubs had an equal chance of getting selected in the big competitions, now, only absolute top clubs – the ones with the most money – have a chance to proceed to the next round and again make a lot of money. With this principle, the gap between greater and lesser talent, richer and poorer clubs, gradually increases. And furthermore, if a myth is a crystallised depiction of principles that function in society as a whole, this is definitely a flawed representation of equal opportunities. However, it is exactly at this point that a cultural-sociological perspective differs from Barthian or other critical perspectives (Bourdieu, 1984; Foucault, 2008) that perceive the interpretation in terms of equality as a superficial story to cover up ‘real’ power relations. Seen from a cultural-sociological perspective, the myth is purely taken in itself as a unit of analysis. In this manner, cultural images are taken seriously and not done away with as insignificant. From this point of departure, a whole domain of research on the nature, varieties, and paradoxes of individualism opens up, instead of a refusal to study them on the ground that they obliterate ‘reality’.

This example also makes it clear that individualism is approached neither in terms of realism nor in terms of an individual, subjective understanding of social reality that no longer possesses any common cultural ground. Instead of making hard realist claims about degrees of individualisation, Ehrenberg studies the different mythologies that we use in our society and that manifest the way we think about the individual. This does not imply that as sociologists, we should emphasise the perspective of the actor, but that our ‘sociological imagination’ is a second-order perspective that studies the loci where we collectively give meaning to subjectivity. According to Ehrenberg (2010b), the problem of sociological theories that portray the actor as a real figure is that they become a product of the individualist culture they are studying. He calls this an ‘individualist sociology’ that does not succeed in keeping the necessary critical distance from its object of study. By means of the concept of myth, Ehrenberg tries to give a more complete story that transcends this ‘individualistic sociology’ in a ‘sociology of individualism’. ‘Individualism’ is in fact a misleading term according to a cultural-sociological perspective, since we should study it, just as we do other cultural phenomena, not at the level of individuals but from a more structural perspective, in the case of Ehrenberg by examining how ideas on individuality are represented in myths. Other cultural sociologists refer to ‘subject cultures’ (Reckwitz, 2012), ‘moral horizons’ of the self (Taylor, 1989), or ‘grammars of the individual’ (Martucelli, 2002).

To illustrate this opposition between a realist perspective on individualism and a perspective that analyses in terms of myths, I suggest applying it to a general theme that has spurred much of Ehrenberg’s thinking, namely mental health (Ehrenberg, 1998; 2010a, 2010b, 2011). From a realist perspective – which I choose here for the individualisation perspective – mental disorder can be attributed to the fading away of previous certainties.⁵ Traditional institutions such as gender, class, and family used to guide us in our choices from cradle to grave. In the second modernity, however, individuals have to compose their own do-it-yourself biographies, and when this task becomes too heavy a burden and guidelines are missing, late modern mental disorders kick in, such as depression, burn-out, stress, or the other end of the spectrum: ADHD and hyperactivity. Social institutions do still play a role in the phenomenon of mental disorder, but in comparison with bygone periods, institutions do not target the group but the individual. The individual who is overloaded with choices becomes either tired of choosing or hyperactive or hypersensitive in response to too many stimuli. The baseline of the realist argument is that depression, burn-out, and other mental disorders are more widely present in our phase of modernity because traditional certainties are falling apart and individuals are incited by modern institutions to take up responsibility for their own lives.

From the perspective of myth, other elements are emphasised. In the rise of depression, burn-out, ADHD, and so on, mostly changing diagnostic practices are in the background. Ehrenberg would not claim that we are experiencing more mental disorder, but instead claims that we use other categories to give meaning to mental disorder, and these in their turn shed light on other ways of conceptualising identity. While in the nineteenth century neurosis and neurasthenia were popular categories, today, depression has taken its place (Ehrenberg, 1998, 2010a). These historic trends in psychiatry do reveal opposing underlying perspectives on the subject, one that is psychoanalytic and that emphasises conflict with social taboos and traditions, while on the other hand, the category of depression has mostly been approached using the perspective of a deficit, be it chemical, to be solved with anti-depressants, or more substantial, on the level of a deficit in initiative and agency. Ehrenberg analyses these two models for approaching depression and how the emphasis in the psychiatric discourse has been gradually relocated from one to the other. This specific myth tells us something about a broader cultural shift from an emphasis on discipline, where the ultimate taboo for the individual was to come into conflict with these rules, while in our time, the emphasis is on initiative and activity, and here, the fear is that we might fall short of these norms.

In both these analyses of mental disorder, increased autonomy and initiative are linked to mental health. In the case of ADHD and hyperactivity, we are dealing with too much activity that cannot be put to effective use, while in the case of depression, it is rather the incapacity to act that is central. The difference, however, is in how far both perspectives believe in this autonomy as a real characteristic of modern man that has increased in comparison to pre-modern times. In the story of individualisation, this autonomy is real, although stimulated by late modern institutions; in the myth-oriented approach, autonomy is a strong and compelling norm that precisely demonstrates its compelling nature through the inability to reach it, as in the case of depression. The constructivist view in particular might be counterintuitive to people immersed in individualist society and used to viewing mental health from the perspective of individual variables or individual bio-chemical reactions. Ehrenberg’s argument is precisely that realist sociology remains indebted to the general cultural focus on autonomy in its analysis. At this point, we must add that Ehrenberg (2010a) makes the comparison not with individualisation theories, but with moral theorists such as Lasch (1991), Rieff (1966) and Sennett (1978), who are more radical in their realist perspective on the actor, while individualisation theorists still point to the importance of social institutions that influence individualised individuals. However, the argument still stands with regard to this more nuanced individualist sociology, since it presents autonomy as a real feature of individualised individuals.

A similar perspective is presented by Meyer (2010; compare Krücken & Drori, 2015), who does not speak in terms of ‘myth’, but uses the term ‘script’ to attribute agency to the actor. In fact, Meyer takes Ehrenberg’s perspective one step further by treating the myth that we are individuals in more abstract terms, while Ehrenberg interrogates myths that form concrete instantiations of individualist culture. In his analysis, the actor may be either a particular individual or a collective actor, such as an organisation or a state. In the latter case, it becomes particularly clear that agency is a matter of ascription instead of a real characteristic. In contemporary society, the script of ‘the individual or collective-as-actor’ is generalised. Meyer (2010) furthermore draws an opposition between a realist and a constructivist perspective on the interaction between institutions and actors. A realist perspective sees actors as real entities, and institutions as a limited set of restricting rules that affect actors only at their boundaries. A constructivist perspective, on the other hand, one that is more in line with the cultural-sociological perspective of an author such as Ehrenberg, has a very rich institutional landscape with complex cultural meanings. The boundaries between individuals and institutions are not clearly delineated; cultural meaning constantly penetrates the actor and even constructs agency and identity. Ehrenberg can be placed on the constructivist side of the spectrum of the opposition Meyer creates here, while individualisation theories tend to fall more in line with realist sociological insights. Individualisation perceives institutions in a rather limited and formal way, in terms merely of legal or economic formal rules which do not affect individuals in their being, while a cultural-sociological perspective perceives our entire conduct as essentially institutional. In order to express our conceptions of the self, we need to rely on shared forms of speech, or what Ehrenberg (1998, p. 243) calls shared ‘institutions of the self ’: for example, that the self must be capable of initiative, of excelling, of being authentic, of uttering his/her deepest emotion in relation to formulating future projects, and so on.⁶ To illustrate this alternative understanding of ‘institutions’ in a cultural-sociological perspective, Ehrenberg refers to Mauss (and Fauconnet), a perspective that we shall further elaborate in the next section and that forms the heart of a cultural-sociological interpretation of individualism:

The argumentation that Ehrenberg develops around the theme of individualism as a socially shared myth is in fact deeply indebted to a French tradition of thinking on individualism rooted in Durkheim, Mauss, and Dumont (Ehrenberg, 2013). In his earlier works, particularly in The Division of Labour (Durkheim, 1893/1997, p. 147), Durkheim is sceptical about individualism as a moral basis for solidarity in modern society. While he also argues against utilitarianism as a binding principle – a line of thought that remains constant throughout his whole work – he does not see this potential in the cult of the individual either. The idea of a shared humanity is too vague and insufficiently powerful to form a new kind of strong mechanical solidarity. By approximately 1897, Durkheim’s texts nevertheless evolve towards a more idealist stance on social solidarity (Marske, 1987). Instead, he evolves to a position that is more in line with Comte’s idealism and emphasises the importance of shared beliefs or ‘collective representations’ as the basis of solidarity. This transition in his thought is accompanied by a different valorisation of the ideal of individualism, and this is illustrated not only in his famous essay, Individualism and the intellectuals, but also in other works, such as The moral education (1902–1903) and Professional ethics and civic morals (Durkheim, 1958). Durkheim argues that individualism should not be equated with utilitarianism or egoism. The proposed alternative bears a remarkable resemblance to the categorical imperative of Kant: we should not base our actions on singular interests, but on what we share as human beings, our value as being human in abstracto (Durkheim, 1898, p. 5). Individualism, in the sense of the later Durkheim, refers to a shared way of perceiving the individual. Instead of emphasising the differences between human beings, the accent is on the human core that every individual shares with each other.

Durkheim takes the distinctive stance that individualism is a collective idea characteristic of modern society. The value of individualism produces social cohesion in a society that searches for meaning within an innerworldly view: ‘It is a religion in which man is at once the worshipper and the God’ (Durkheim, 1898, p. 46). Just like religion, individualism constitutes a whole made up of ideas and values that create social order. Ehrenberg builds further on this theoretical approach to individualism as a shared ‘mythology’ in his terminology, where Durkheim would have spoken of a social fact. This becomes apparently clear in the following quotation about the focus on ‘personal development’ as a social norm:

In the end, the discourse emphasising personality is a shared and thus impersonal discourse, just as Durkheim argued. However, with regard to the content given to this individualism, Ehrenberg differs from Durkheim’s nineteenth-century moralistic characterisation. Durkheim saw individualism as a humanistic ideal underlining each individual’s principal equality, in line with the Christian notion of the soul. Ehrenberg leaves room for more diverse interpretations of the individualist myth. It may refer to the exceptional individual as illustrated by the athlete-hero, or to the individual overloaded with responsibilities unable to live up to the norm of self-government – as becomes apparent in depression, burn-out, or stress.

Ehrenberg also takes Durkheim’s ideas one step further and nuances them using the later ideas of his most renowned student, Marcel Mauss. He formulates the contrast between the two sociologists as follows:

More so than does Durkheim, Mauss emphasises the interweaving of the social and the individual level and of those of obligation and spontaneity. A social fact does not determine people in a given culture to act in a certain way, but the people of the culture experience this in terms of acts of their free will. As such, the distinction between the two is fainter than Durkheim makes it seem (Karsenti, 2011, p. 183). The examples that Mauss is thinking of here are the funeral rituals which he studied as an anthropologist in Australia. Here, he analysed mourning not purely as an expression of social obligation: ‘This conventionality and regularity does not in any way exclude sincerity,’ he wrote, ‘no more than in our own funeral rites. All of this is at once social and compulsory, and yet violent and natural’ (Mauss, 1969, 277–278). The mourning is analogous to a language with its emotional symbols. Also, in general, Mauss makes use of the analogy of a cultural system as a ‘symbolic system’ or a language. As a language, social reality does not force us to behave in a given way, but defines the limits and the structure of potential behaviour. Ehrenberg compares this in our interview to the relation of the langue and the parole. The langue is the abstract system of the language and the parole is made up of the concrete utterances by individual language users. The parole can only situate itself within the confines of the abstract language system, but can form inventive combinations within it. In the same manner, the individual too forms a concrete instantiation of social logics that are connected to each other and as such ‘is a modality of the normative structure’ (21 January 2013). Ehrenberg’s hypothesis is that the language in which we express ourselves today is one of affects, subjectivity, and autonomy.

To a certain degree, we may be tempted to see some affinities here with pragmatist thought on action (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006; James, 2011; Joas, 1996). The Maussian correction of Durkheim indeed is an attempt to overcome strong dualisms between spontaneity and obligation and to create some room for the individual interpretation of social norms. Moreover, the connection here is made between social norms and how they are used in real situations and in interaction with others. Indeed, Ehrenberg (2014) also refers to the late Wittgenstein (1976) and to Winch (1970) to emphasise the use of social rules in practice. These influences point to the surpassing of a merely idealist stance with regard to social norms, to include how people use norms and rules in their lives and how conduct is influenced by them. The intuition of the ‘situatedness’ of practices beyond social fields (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006) can eventually also centre more on action in concrete situations. Moving beyond Ehrenberg’s perspective, a connection could be drawn to the pragmatist concept of ‘situated creativity’ (Joas, 1996). Here, more room is given to the creative capacity of the individual actor in facing a social reality that does not completely conform to what social norms anticipate. Of course, in everyday situations, a great many of our actions is unreflective and habitual, but in some situations, these habits are put to the test and active meaning-giving or problem-solving is demanded. While these intuitions might to a certain degree be present in Ehrenberg’s (2014) more theoretical reflections, their implications for the treatment of his empirical cases on individualism are, at least so far, absent. A cultural sociology of the subject might be more nuanced if it brought in how people in real situations make use of and negotiate these norms.

This remark is closely related to the observation that the description of myths seems to suggest that they are not mere representations of social reality, but that meaning is also enacted by these collective interpretations. The football players do not only represent in a condensed way an expression of the norms and values of an individualist culture, they also inspire people to act in accordance with these values. The dream of outshining others in fair competition has a real effect on individual players or teams, spurring them to live up to this dream. And not only professional teams illustrate the powerful influence of this cultural myth. Think, for example, of the little Afghan boy with his Messi shirt made out of a plastic bag who recently got a lot of media attention, culminating in meeting his hero (The Guardian, 2016). He, many other children, and hobby clubs all over the world illustrate the global reach of this particular dream. With regard to depression too, the diagnostic categories that are used might have a ‘looping effect’ or ‘double hermeneutics’ on how individuals see themselves in relation to these categories (e.g. Giddens, 1991; Hacking, 1998). These examples make apparent that the myth is not a mere mirror of the cultural values of a society, but rather is something that inspires belief in itself and has performative effects. Ehrenberg does not, however, systematically elaborate this element. His analysis is limited to the description of myths and the diverse ideas on individualism they present, but he gives us no idea of how people relate to these stories. An interesting addition would be that individuals believe themselves to be individuals and actively enact the ideas on individuality that are presented to them in myths. The latter insight is closely related to a performative interpretation of classification schemes, characteristic of a whole school of contemporary sociological theory known as ‘the performative turn’ (Butler, 2007; Law & Urry, 2003). Furthermore, the techniques people use to shape their identities, to modify their selves and bodies in accordance with cultural ideals, which Foucault (1993) calls ‘techniques of the self’, might also form an interesting addition, embracing the work that the individual performs to bring him/herself in accordance with what myths prescribe.⁸

Both these remarks lead us to the question of the role of agency in the approach to individualism as myth, a question which simultaneously points to an essential difference between a pragmatist and performative approach. While Ehrenberg wants to go further than a merely Durkheimian approach that sees social norms as coercing an actor to act in a certain way, he does not treat agency as an isolated topic as such. To speak of ‘situated creativity’ would, in his view, emphasise the role of the individual too much. This does not imply that he denies agency altogether in his theoretical reflections; but in his analysis, he focuses on the culturally shared level that guides individual action, and not on micro-level resistances or creative reactions to the macro-story. In this sense, Ehrenberg interprets Mauss not as a radical break away from Durkheim. For him, individual action can still only be conceptualised as far as it is situated within the confines of social structures. Seen from the perspective of the opposition between agency and structure, the main point that Ehrenberg makes is in fact that the theme of individualism should be studied from a structural perspective. However, Ehrenberg’s perspective stays very focused on structure, and shares the evident shortcomings Durkheim’s approach already contained. To a great extent, the aspects of what the myths of individualism mean for the individual actor, how the individual appropriates this discourse, or in how far he/she can resist it, remain blind spots for him.

It follows that the image of the opponent Ehrenberg wants to refute comes across as simplified; in fact, he equates ‘individualistic sociology’ with actor-centric sociology, while individualist sociology can also point out an institutional framework, as Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, Giddens, and Bauman show. On the other hand, pragmatist and performative theories show that a cultural-sociological approach does not have to be solely focused on structure and can, instead, take into account how cultural narratives influence the actor’s understanding of him/herself. The big difference, however, is that for individualisation theories, agency in the second modernity is an ontological assumption that forms their point of departure, while a cultural-sociological perspective brings in the appropriation of the myth by the actor as a derived theme. Ehrenberg develops a theory that points in the direction of the latter element, especially by referring to Mauss, but there is still room for a more complete elaboration of this approach, especially with regard to its application to concrete myths; this could in turn overcome a strong opposition between actor-centric and socio-centric theories on individualism.

In this article, I have contrasted two perspectives that try to theorise about the heightened attention to identity in contemporary society. On the one hand, theories of individualisation observe an increase in autonomy and a decrease in traditional community ties; on the other hand, there is the Durkheimian perspective that we illustrated in Ehrenberg’s work. The latter perspective criticises the former but also presents an alternative approach that offers answers to previously formulated critiques of analyses of individualisation. Instead of picturing individual and society as two communicating vessels, so that we would now be witnessing a movement in favour of the individual, as theories of individualisation claim, a cultural-sociological perspective emphasises the continual social conditioning of our thinking on identity. Ehrenberg points out the importance of myths or shared ways of bestowing meaning on the individual, and indicates the dependency of actor-centric theories on an individualist culture and the projection of individualistic values into a social-scientific ontology. I have shown how this reasoning is related to a Durkheimian perspective on individualism as a social fact, in which the emphasis on personalisation is approached as a perfectly impersonal process.

Presenting Ehrenberg in terms of a critique of individualisation theories has enabled me to develop a more critical perspective on Ehrenberg’s ideas and to suggest additions for developing a more nuanced cultural-sociological perspective on individualism. Ehrenberg himself describes his position as opposing that of decidedly actor-centric representations of individualism, while forms of individualisation that also take social institutions into account offer a more complex perspective. Nevertheless, here too there is an essential difference between these and a cultural-sociological perspective that focuses on myths, since they perceive identity as a social construct, while in individualisation theory, real qualities such as autonomy are attributed to the individual as actor. Furthermore, a cultural-sociological perspective should also include what it means for individuals to view themselves in terms of myths. How does it affect our images of ourselves if we view ourselves in terms of the views of individuality that are presented in myths? A performative perspective that includes the enactment of individualist scripts could provide inspiration here. Furthermore, as in a pragmatist stance, the implications for acting in concrete situations are underexposed from Ehrenberg’s perspective and could be further elaborated.

These themes could shed further light upon other questions that go beyond the scope of individualisation tout court, such as how individuals are socialised into an individualist culture. If we are dealing with shared values here, there must be a learning process that inculcates inclusion in this value system. Such research would, for example, correspond well with the tradition that already exists of analysing advice literature for bringing up children (Stearns, 2004). The paradoxes that result from this, such as learning to be an individual, or to be ‘more autonomous’, would clearly reveal the cultural nature of individualism. Furthermore, from a cultural-sociological perspective focused on myths, future research could be carried out into how individualism takes on diverse forms, for example, in political myths, economic myths in the business sphere, myths in the contemporary practice of religious groups or spiritual subcultures, therapeutic disciplines, myths about multiculturalism, and so on. While individualisation is perceived as a unitary and unidirectional process, an approach centred on myths reveals the polysemic and often contradictory nature of our notions of the self. We can conclude that Ehrenberg’s perspective on individualism, building further on a long tradition that inspires it, opens up new theoretical as well as empirical perspectives for future research. We could even say that the scope of Ehrenberg’s thinking surpasses the particular subject of individualism, insofar as he reminds us, in times in which the subject is central, what the fundamental sociological assumptions are.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.