¶1 What we mean by ‘individualism’ is the negation of every principle superior to individuality, and, consequently, the reduction of civilisation, in all domains, to purely human elements alone; it is therefore, at bottom, the same thing as what was designated at the time of the Renaissance by the name of ‘humanism’, as we have said above, and it is also what properly characterises what we earlier called the ‘profane point of view’.1 All this, in sum, is only one and the same thing under diverse designations; and we have also said that this ‘profane’ spirit is confounded with the anti‑traditional spirit, in which are summed up all the specifically modern tendencies.2 It is not, to be sure, that this spirit is entirely new; it has already had, in other epochs, more or less accentuated manifestations, but always limited and aberrant, and which had never extended to the whole ensemble of a civilisation as they have done in the Occident over the course of the last few centuries.3 What had never been seen until now is a civilisation built entirely on something purely negative, on what one might call an absence of principle; this is precisely what gives the modern world its abnormal character, what makes of it a sort of monstrosity, explicable only if one considers it as corresponding to the end of a cyclic period, according to what we explained at the outset.4 It is therefore indeed individualism, as we have just defined it, that is the determining cause of the present decadence of the Occident, by the very fact that it is, as it were, the motor of the exclusive development of the most inferior possibilities of humanity, of those whose expansion demands the intervention of no supra‑human element, and which can even unfold completely only in the absence of such an element, because they are at the extreme opposite of all spirituality and all true intellectuality.5
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Summary

Guénon defines ‘individualism’ as the rejection of any principle higher than individuality, reducing civilisation to purely human elements—essentially the same as Renaissance humanism and the ‘profane point of view’. He states that this profane spirit is identical with the anti‑traditional spirit that characterises all modern tendencies. Although not entirely new, such manifestations were previously limited and aberrant, never before dominating an entire civilisation. A civilisation built on an ‘absence of principle’ is unprecedented and monstrous, explicable only as the end of a cyclic period. Thus individualism is the cause of the West’s present decadence, driving the exclusive development of humanity’s lowest possibilities, which require no supra‑human element and oppose all spirituality and true intellectuality.

General notes

  1. individualisme / humanisme — Rendered as ‘individualism / humanism’. Guénon identifies modern ‘individualism’ with Renaissance ‘humanism’. Humanism (15th-16th century) placed man at the centre of everything, substituting the study of the human for that of the divine. For Guénon, this is the negation of every supra‑human reality (God, transcendent principles, Tradition). Humanism is therefore, under a more flattering name, the same attitude as individualism: the reduction of all knowledge and all value to the measure of the individual man. ↩︎
  2. esprit antitraditionnel — Rendered as ‘anti‑traditional spirit’. Guénon coins this term to designate the fundamental attitude of modernity: not a simple ignorance of Tradition, but an active and systematic opposition to it. The anti‑traditional spirit denies the reality of every transcendent principle and claims to found civilisation on the sole basis of the human. It is ‘specifically modern’ because never before had an entire civilisation been built on this rejection. ↩︎
  3. manifestations limitées — Rendered as ‘limited manifestations’. Guénon concedes that the anti‑traditional spirit has always existed as a marginal deviation. One finds examples in Antiquity (certain Greek sophists, the atomist materialists), in India (heterodox schools such as the Cārvāka), in the Islamic world (certain rationalist thinkers). But these deviations remained confined to small circles and did not influence civilisation as a whole. The radical novelty of the modern Occident is the generalisation of this spirit to the whole of society. ↩︎
  4. absence de principe / monstruosité — Rendered as ‘absence of principle / monstrosity’. Guénon uses strong terms: modern civilisation is ‘abnormal’ (contrary to nature), ‘monstrous’ (a pathological deformation of the normal order). It is built on an ‘absence of principle’: it recognises no transcendent foundation, no immutable truth, no ontological hierarchy. It is a civilisation that turns in a void, like a house built on sand. This situation is explicable only by the cyclic doctrine: the Kali Yuga, the Iron Age, is the period when principles withdraw from the world, leaving room for chaos. ↩︎
  5. possibilités les plus inférieures — Rendered as ‘most inferior possibilities’. Guénon here resumes the doctrine of ‘possibilities’ (virtualities contained in being). Humanity possesses a range of virtualities, from the highest (spiritual, intellectual) to the lowest (material, instinctual, animal). Individualism, by denying the supra‑human, leaves room only for the development of inferior virtualities. Modern science, technology, economics, mass politics are expressions of these low possibilities. They can unfold fully only ‘in the absence’ of any spiritual principle, because the presence of the spiritual would limit and subordinate them, which individualism refuses. ↩︎