We can trace the individualist mindset back at least several thousand years, and certainly to the time of the ancient Greeks, who also created a split between the spiritual and the physical which then became the fundamental principle behind many of the world’s major religions, including Christianity. By the middle ages this had developed into profound theological introspection but the Renaissance revived ancient Greek philosophical thinking, leading to the Age of Reason, conquest of nature, rise of capitalism and ultimately to our current culture of extreme individualism, rampant consumerism and neoliberal politics and economics.
