Denny seems, almost classically, to have been caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of 1960s individualism: the desire, on the one hand, for constant attention and, on the other, for freedom from scrutiny, contradictory longings for fame and romantic obscurity.
From Sam Smiles' "Self-help" through to the Daily Mail's Ideal Homes exhibition (a yearly festival that first opened its doors nearly a century ago), the middle classes have been associated with individualism, a powerful desire to ascend.
We are indeed violent, but we have shown flashes of nonviolence, that is to say moments where our competitive individualism, our insecurity, our desire for the highest return on our investment of time and money, has been trumped by the vividness of the likeness of others.
In contrast to Xu Xiake, who focused on technical aspects in his travel literature, the Chinese poet and official Yuan Hongdao (1568 1610) used travel literature to express his desires for individualism as well as autonomy from and frustration with Confucian court politics.
But in the wake of a period of rampant individualism, with its noisy excess of desiring, getting, and spending, the scientists of mind, in all their initial broad range, are once more trying.
State governments are becoming no more than regional subdivisions of the national government, businesses and nonprofit groups are becoming tools of the state, and individualism is giving way to a more European desire for cradle-to-grave dependency.
It will be a collectivism which will arise due to the need for self-realization of the individual - who is always motivated, be the desire to serve - and therefore represents the highest form of individualism.
Under the aegis of romantic individualism, modern marriage (heterosexual, to be sure) favors the desires of the bride and groom over the interests of family and state.
While the elites professed a desire to improve the world, their hubris recreated the "predatory individualism" of the pre-New Deal era.
The ethos of individualism that I grew up with remains, but so too does the desire to be part of a community -- of something larger than a single individual or single family.
