[564] infinity, is unsolvable for him, and he tries to get rid of it by returning to something which is less than human. In the same way, all highly individualized cultures have a tendency to return to primitive collectivism. And this is so important because it was a characteristic of our OWN period, where at the end of the 19th century, individualism (in the one sense which I gave you) was developed to such a degree that the individual subject, the completely separated personality, was unable to exist any longer; and especially in the younger generation of the early 20th century, in the different youth movements, the tendency to return to the group prevailed. This was the fertile soil

for the other neo-collectivistic movements which appeared both as Communism ^aand as Fascism^b and Nazism^c. Now in order to discuss this situation, I suggest some distinctions. All this has not happened in England, while it happened in Continental Europe. It has not happened in this country either. Why not? Because in England we have another form of existence over against Continental individualism, namely conformism^d. Let's look at this word for a moment. Conformism can be understood in a merely negative sense, namely as subjecting oneself to the laws of convention, to avoid being outstanding, standing on oneself, or as I formulated it in the Courage to Be, the courage to be oneself. Where this is lacking, there, conformism can develop. But conformism is,

like all "isms", something which is verbally critical, is negative. Whenever we look at British life, we wouldn't call it conformism in this negative sense, although it has conformistic elements in it; but we would call it a system of conformity. And perhaps it is wise to distinguish these