(Two A): The cult of the dignity or the individual, also known as moral individualism by Emile Durkheim, is complex and equates to what many would view as a call for authoritarian political doctrine. However, this reading of Durkheim is shallow because he maintains that the social dilemmas in modern times between individualism and society “Are not to be resolved through a reversion to the autocratic discipline found in tradition societies, but only through the moral consolidation of the differentiated divisions of labour, which demands quite different forms of authority” (Durkheim 118).
Moral authority individualism and freedom are mutually exclusive opposites. This is because to be free does not mean to be free to follow one’s individual inexhaustible desires. Instead, being free means enjoying membership in society, where one is bound to the moral constructs of that society in order to enjoy the benefits of societal protection. As Durkheim (117) states “By putting himself under the wing of society, he makes himself also, to a certain extent, dependent upon it. But this is a liberating dependence.” To be free, or moral individualism, then, is a matter of being in control of one’s own egocentric desires in order to be self-disciplined enough to follow the moral dictates of society. In this way, the individual is able to “reconcile the competing demands of individuals for freedom with the interests of society in collective welfare” (Tole 1).
(Two B): The First Amendment guarantees individual rights to the citizens of the U.S., including, the rights of freedom, religion, speech, peaceful assembly, and the press. Formerly, individuals had to look to individual states for a guarantee of their rights. Durkheim believed that the individual submits to society but “this submission is the condition of his liberation” (Durkheim 117). For individuals, liberation amounts t
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