What Individualism Is and Is not Or the ideals of Pippi Longstocking and Lisa Simpson

It is often suggested that the distinguishing characteristic of public opinion in contemporary Western societies is a lack of shared moral guidelines in life: everything goes. The only ideal left is what is often called individualism, namely that of not accepting any given roles, values or ideals in life but instead striving towards being as free as possible to behave as one pleases. In this paper, I shall question this understanding of individualism. I shall argue that, both conceptually and empirically, individualism is also a set of specific ideals, as opposed to the lack thereof. In this paper, I back up my argument both by theorizing and presenting two new empirical studies, one on Dutch and the other on Swedish survey data. These indicate there are no reasons to assume that just because one is an individualist in the sense that one values individual freedom, one would also condone egoism, freeriding and hedonism. Neither do individualists need to be alienated and lacking a larger goal in life than the pursuit of self-interest. Finally, one of the studies also suggests there are two types of individualistic ideals: one external and oriented towards freedom of action (exemplified by Pippi Longstocking) and another more internal and focused on freedom of thought (exemplified by Lisa Simpson). Introduction At the turn of the 21 Century, we are surrounded by ideals of individual freedom. Most of us are familiar with some of the children’s heroes Pippi Longstocking, Lisa Simpson, Ugly Betty, Huckleberry Finn and others from popular culture, who in many ways epitomize the value of individual independence. Whether it is the freedom to follow one’s own mind instead of the rules dictated by the grown-up world (Pippi Longstocking), or the freedom to hold different opinions and tastes from one’s peers (Lisa Simpson) that matters most to them; these widely influential children’s heroes all share a commitment to individual freedom of some kind. We can choose to cheer them on and call them upright, authentic, original and self-reliant. Or we can disapprove of their behavior and call them egoistic, pig-headed, subversive or disobedient. But we cannot deny that these children’s heroes all present individual freedom as something desirable. In that sense, I argue, they are essentially individualistic heroes. 1 1 Someone may of course question whether children’s books can really tell us anything at all about our culture. Here, I believe it is safe to answer that, although much of their popularity is certainly due to the narrative style in which they are told, these stories also carry an undeniably normative content. Their moral message may be less subtle than those from Grimm’s fairy tales or Slovenly Peter, but it is nevertheless there, supplying children with role models, solutions to problems they have to deal with, inspiring them to do what is considered admirable actions and to develop what is