In the recent American presidential election, the subject of grand debate was individualism versus community: a shift of emphasis from liberty to fraternity. In the ongoing presidential election in South Korea, it is the same. Why? The two are quite different kinds of countries: America is a mature Western democratic and capitalist country and South Korea an emergent Eastern democratic and capitalist country, but they suffer from the same problem ― a conflict between individualism and collectivism.

Many concerned scholars believe that the root cause of the financial crisis that began in 2009 in the West is individualism. The twin pillars of modern Western civilization, democracy and capitalism, are founded on individualism. In fact, the modern liberal international order championed by the U.S. is based on these twin pillars. In the West, Western democracy is now being critically reexamined and various forms of revised democracy are being propagated by leading political thinkers. Capitalism also is going through the same process of critical reassessment.

History shows that in the beginning all human societies started as a community. In a community, individuals are subordinate to the community characterized by the spirit of collectivism, a hierarchical governing structure and a communal economic order. It means that communalism is incompatible with individualism, capitalism and democracy. As human history unfolded, the West began to replace communalism with individualism through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and built a new form of society based on capitalism and democracy. Consequently, the West was able to accumulate wealth and atomize society faster than the East.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the West is faced with a spiritual and material crisis; it has found out that unless it solves the conflict between individualism and collectivism, capitalism and democracy can hardly be preserved, and consequently political stability, good governance and economic prosperity can no longer be guaranteed.

According to Jeremy Rifkin, individualism in the West emerged in the late Renaissance in the 16th century and became consolidated during the Industrial Revolution. It means that in the West collectivism began to disappear 500 years ago and Western people now have no memory of the communal way of life. They have rarely thought that individualism eventually destroys democracy and capitalism if it fails to accommodate communalism.

The twin pillars of Western civilization, democracy and capitalism, have been transplanted to the non-communist states in the East after World War II and have become the driving forces of Westernization and economic development. As democracy and capitalism have taken root, individualism began to seep into the Eastern mind. However, the conflict between Western and Eastern civilizations still continues because collectivism had prevailed in the East at least until World War II and individualism has only recently emerged.

There are differences in terms of severity and scope of the conflict among states in the East, depending on the duration and intensity of exposure to Western civilization and the nature of their indigenous cultures. China, Japan and South Korea are good cases in point. China is likely to go through a more difficult cultural transformation than Japan, with South Korea going through a intermediate-level one.

In terms of means to deal with the problem, the East is faced with more severe complicated obstacles than the West because in the East the young generation favors individualism and the old generation collectivism, but in the West has no such generational division and the entire population is faced with the same dilemma. The West is struggling to integrate collectivism into individualism or to synthesize it. In contrast, the East does not know what to do because neither generation has any realistic choice. Once individualism takes root, it will destroy collectivism and breed capitalism, satisfying the innate materialist desires of humanity, and making resistance futile.

The West had gradually abandoned communalism and replaced it with individualism. The East is rapidly replacing communalism with individualism. This is the reason why the U.N. Millennium Declaration included both individualistic values (freedom and equality) and communalistic values (solidarity and tolerance) among its Millennium Goals. Therefore, East and West should meet and discuss this issue through the U.N.-sponsored Dialog among Civilizations.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.