Thursday, September 10, 2015

Can humans ever truly be individuals? What are some arguments on both sides of the issue?

From a psychological standpoint, the answer is a qualified yes. While, theoretically, personality consists of varying degrees of traits (such as introversion/extroversion, etc), all people share these same trait foundations. Think of building blocks that come in several colors (red, blue, green, and yellow). Give an unlimited amount of these blocks to five different children and instruct them to build a tower. Each of their towers will be different and unique, but they will all share a basic foundation of the same colors of blocks. 


There are several competing theories of personality, each with their own merit. However, most of these theories agree that there are basic personality traits and that each person has varying degrees of these traits, which create their unique personality.


Considering culture, it is fair to say that many people are very similar to one another, especially in areas such as spiritual and political opinion. Culture is interesting because it creates areas of personality that are indeed almost identical between individuals. Culture, though, influences only a small part of an individual's personality. 


Arguably, most of a personality is constructed from past experiences. As you can imagine, each person has completely unique life experiences. These experiences build on one another, forming memories, habits, and opinions. In this way, every person is indeed unique, although it may take more than surface observation to realize.

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