Abstract
In reflection upon the endless utopian social experiments to which humanity has turned its thought for millennia, a re-evaluation of the human being’s true (constrained and imperfect) nature and resulting worth must be undertaken. The most important contribution of Western thought to human civilization is that each unique, imperfect human being is of moral, spiritual, philosophical, and sentimental importance (i.e., is noble, of interest, and lovable). Through review of the caste-based, impersonal system of ancient India, then proceeding through a salient history of Western socio-political utopianism from Plato to Marx, a contrasting prologue is formed in order to highlight the historical Euro-American value of the individual in opposition to the impersonal emphasis present in the Hindu-Buddhist-Jain and Platonic-Marxist systems. This then is opposed by the cultural roots and evolution of the individualist tradition through review of the human-divine moral struggle of the Hebrew Bible; the Homeric, Sokratic, and tragic traditions of ancient Greece; the Tristan and Grail romances of the Middle Ages; the “Constrained” Enlightenment of Locke, Smith, Burke, and the American Founders; and finally the ironic, comically affirmative literature of James Joyce and Thomas Mann. The result is a body of evidence which leads to the sobering and ennobling truth that man is imperfect and denied earthly paradise, but in his imperfection, individual human triumph in spite of such folly is revealed to be the heroic sign of a creature which is both lower than the angels but higher in worth than any other.