Wildean Individualism as Aesthetic Proto-Personalism

Wilde's interrogation of the concept of the individual, and more particularly the "individualist," spans through his works in explicit ways as well as through subtle literary tropes. This analysis focuses primarily on his investigation of his intentional explication of the individual and the individualist alike.

To penetrate into Wildean individualism and put it in dialogue with trends in personalism it is necessary to briefly flesh out the distinction between these particular frames of thought with regard to their anthropological and ethical dimension. These philosophical schools, as they bear relation to the prominency of the individual in philosophical methodology dating back to Cartesian thought up through 19th and 20th century egoism, place their greatest conceptual stakes precisely upon their definition of the person. In both individualism and personalism, a precise understanding of what constitutes the self determines how the will exists in relationship to the person and society. This introduction to Wilde's personalism will open first by delineating the conceptual differences used in this analysis between traditional individualism and personalism; that is, from a phenomenological standpoint, individualism is premised on the disintegration of the self and will in order to promote the ideal of an autonomous, self-determining person free from the strictures of society. The personalist perspective, on the other hand, understands the person as an organic and unifed whole engaged in an interative process of self-actualization and dynamic inter-relationality with the exterior world. To introduce this subject, the analysis will briefly unpack Wilde's criticism of materialist individualism in The Soul of Man and his suggestion of a more nuanced view of the Wildean individual using Christ as a model. By the end of this introduction to Wilde's individualism there will be three particularly striking conceptual theses worth comparing to the work of French personalist Mounier.

In his article "Individualism and Personalism" in Ethical Perspectives, Roland Breeur precisely distinguishes between the way that individualism and personalism treat these relationships respectively. His explication provides a helpful point of departure for this analysis although not uncritically: In the first conception, [individualism], this relation remains external: reflection is not of the

same order as the self and, conversely, the self is something that always falls outside of reflection, something against which a position can be occupied and a (critical) distance taken. [...] The second conception sees the self and reflection as forming an organic unity preceding any conscious indentification. [...] This is the personalistic conception of the self. The self and reflection share one and the same nature, and the relation between them is internal.⁴

In other words, the individualist sees the primary purpose of life and society as providing freedom to the person to obtain autonomy by willfully self-determining the life he or she desires. In this way, the will is set as a sovereign over the self and this capacity for autonomous self-determination is either catalyzed or obstructed by social forces. Personalism, as movement, evolved in part as a response to what is percevied as an artificially bifurcated phenomenology which atomized the person into a will and a social marionette. Rather than understanding the person as a will which seeks to exert external control over the self, personalism reconfigured the person as an organic whole which does not assimilate anything external without a reorganizing of the totality which is achieved solely by internal forces.⁵ Certainly there are aspects of Wildean individualism which appear consonant with this artificial bifurcation of the person as a critique of oppressive social forces. There are, however, as this analysis will attempt to show, sufficient grounds for the reconsideration of Wildean individualism as a holistic unity of the self and the will which prefigures the personalist critiques of traditional individualism.

In The Soul of Man Under Socialism (hereafter referred to as The Soul of Man ), Wilde first introduces the concept of individuality by critiquing the insufficieny of the "individualism" that is buttressed by overt materialism. Even in our contemporary day, it is apparent how individualism can be transposed onto capitalist sensitivites by concluding that the accumulation of wealth is necessary for the individual to obtain the power of autonomous self-determination within society. If an individual desires a life for his or her self which includes certain possessions or material luxuries it will first be necessary for the individual to obtain the wealth required so that one is wilfully free to shape the self with whatever material goods are desired.⁶

Wilde develops the pre-conditions of a society in which the material circumstances would contribute to a society's capacity to cultivate Wildean individualism: the abolition of private property and the distinguishing of poverty.⁷ Following this discussion, Wilde points to a few examples (primarily artists) who serve as examples of this achievement:

But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less dependent on the existence of private property for its development, will benefit by the abolition of such private property. The answer is very simple. It is true that, under existing conditions, a few men who have had private means of their own, such as Byron, Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire and others, have been able to realize their personality more or less completely.⁸

Wilde is implying that the material freedom (i.e. the person of wealth is free to obtain what he or she desires) of these examples enables their individual freedom to "realize their personality." He continues:

Under the new conditions Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more intensified than it is now. I am not talking of the great imaginatively-realized individualism of such poets as I have mentioned, but of the great actual Individualism latent and potential in mankind generally.⁹

Wilde goes on to flesh out how modern society has done damage to the notion of individualism by burdening it with shallow materialism and putting the onus of a man's self-realization on his material freedom. He makes a point to highlight that the individualism of which he speaks is not merely that of the examples he has given. However, because of the following explication of the "materialistic individualism" it is not precisely clear where the "great imaginatively-realized individualism of such poets" falls between the corrupted materialistic individualism, and the ideal Wildean individualism. Wilde clearly sees these poets as having realized an individualism which grasps toward Wildean individualism and was able to "imaginatively" circumvent the corrupting influences of materialism. This is an important clarifying distinction, because it emphasises the idiosyncratic nature of his understanding, use and advocation of the notion of individualism.¹⁰

Wilde's critique of material individualism folds into his utilization of Christ as the Wildean individualist par excellence.¹¹ Wilde foregrounds his classicism and pivots on the image of Christ: "'Know Thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be Thyself' shall be written. And the message of Christ to man was simply 'Be Thyself.'"¹² Wilde's interpretation of Jesus' teaching notwithstanding, "be thyself" seems prima facie to be the slogan of individualism from the 19th century to the present day. Nevertheless, the ambiguity and ubiquity of this turn of phrase— be thyself— requires more thorough explication to uncover Wilde's intended meaning.

Wilde continues, "What Jesus meant, was this. He said to man, 'You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you.'"¹³ Wilde's bifurcation of the internal and the external is significant to note with regard to our initial qualification (vis-a-vis Breeur) to the distinction between individualism and personalism. The objection may be raised however, that in this passage, Wilde's explication of Jesus' teaching is with regard merely to external material goods i.e. riches. However, his appeal to self-realization as something that arises internally leaves the door open for personalist, rather than a traditional individualist, interpretation of Wilde's phenomenology.¹⁴ In order to demonstrate this, it will be necessary to show that Wildean self-realization is not merely the freedom for the individual to willfully self-determine the life he or she desires to live, but rather the actualization and unity of a pre-existent will and self.

There are a variety of peculiar consonances between Wilde's development of the person and the work of French personalist Emmanuel Mounier. Putting Wilde's writing in dialogue with Mounier will draw out crucial aspects of Wildean individualism which exemplifies its unique relationship to personalist philosophy. The concluding section of this analysis will give special attention to three substantial congruencies in the anthropological dimensions of Wilde and Mounier: the separation of thought from action with the emphasis on being, the constant of change when adopting a personalist viewpoint, and the inclusion—rather than exclusion—of others in ideal self-actualization. Exploration of these three examples will not only provide the grounds for demonstrating the complex nuances of Wildean individualism, but distinguish its unique position in relationship to the historical development of personalism.

Having done this, the analysis will conclude by explicating Wilde's aestheticism with particular regard for the nature and role of the person. Beginning as an artist and aestheticist conceptualizing the nature of the person and social existence, Wilde's unique aesthetic idealism translates into a complex and nuanced vision of the self as an organic and dynamic unity involved in ongoing interiorizing and exteriorizing actualization and development. As a result, his aestheticism leds itself to an phenomenology much more resonant with personalist philosophy (particularly that of Mounier) and can adequetely be qualified as a type of aesthetic proto-personalism.