New Individualism and its Problems: Social-Philosophical Analysis

The subject of the research in this paper is a new individualism and problems that exist within it. This phenomenon arose as a result of the process of individualization that took place at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. The purpose of this paper is a representation of the culture of new individualism according to the views of such modern social theorists as N. Elias, U. Beck, Z. Bauman, C. Taylor and A. Giddens, E. Elliott, E. Illuze, as well as the providing with the overview of the main problems existing within this culture. Due to the necessity to describe contemporary situation we have selected several social theories, which refer to the end of XX – beginning of XXI century. Since the new individualism consists of many elements and is complex, we had to: 1) define the historical context that gave birth to this process, describe the main steps of the process and the main features of the modern process of individualization; 2) to represent a general background for the development of the culture of a new individualism expressed in the forms of globalization, McDonaldization, the changed character of mobility, consumer practices, sexualization of the culture; 3) describe the main problems that are an integral part of the culture of the new individualism. A separate chapter is devoted to the solution of each problem in the paper. In conclusion we have come to the several results: 1) the individualization is connected with transformation of the individuality from given once and forever into a task for individual; 2) within the culture of a new individualism under the influence of the process of individualization transformations take place in the economy, politics, culture, and a personal life of the individual; 3) individualization, as well as globalization, mobility, consumption are the destiny of an individual; 4) the processes occurring within the culture of a new individualism and aimed at the release of the individuals, in practice make them unfree.