📌 The common confusion
In everyday language, the word individualism is often associated with selfishness, isolation, or refusal to collaborate. This confusion distorts how we understand the relationship between the individual and the group. But the truth is far deeper and more balanced.

🧍‍♀️ What true individualism means
Authentic individualism means the conscious freedom to preserve your autonomy, to define your own values and decisions, and to act in accordance with them — without denying your responsibility toward others.
It’s an attitude that recognizes the value of each person as a unique being, with the right to freedom, but also the duty to respect the freedom and dignity of others.

🫂 Autonomy + cooperation = balance
This personal autonomy is essential for cooperation to be real and effective. A group made up of individuals who passively conform to norms, without assuming responsibility or expressing their true identity, risks becoming an inert mass — vulnerable to dysfunction and lacking creativity.

By contrast, a group made up of truly autonomous individuals who choose to collaborate out of freedom and mutual respect becomes a living, dynamic, and strong community.
Here, individualism is not an obstacle, but a condition for authentic cooperation.

🧠 Balance – a form of intelligence
Thus, individualism and collaboration are not opposing forces, but complementary and indispensable facets of social and personal life.
Supporting both at the same time opens the path to healthier relationships, better decisions, and a more balanced society.

👉 A true individualist doesn’t join a group because “that’s how it’s done,” but because they see real value in that group and in its people.

🔹 That means their presence in the group is a conscious and voluntary act — not an obligation or a social performance.
🔹 Precisely because of that, an individualist is often a reliable member: being there out of choice, not pressure, they will respect others’ freedom, dignity, and autonomy — because they hold those things sacred themselves.

✍️ In contrast, people who are “group-minded” out of habit, fear, or conformity may become passive or even toxic members — stepping over others without realizing it, simply because they don’t truly value their own freedom or that of others.

💡 That’s why, paradoxically to some, a committed individualist is often a more reliable, balanced, and respectful collaborator than someone who defines themselves only by belonging to groups.

🧠 Remember this:
🔔 An individualist is not a selfish person.
🔔 Selfish people can be highly “social” — not because they care, but because they benefit.
🔔 Choosing not to participate, preferring silence, not speaking just because everyone else does — that’s individualism, not selfishness.

📘 In English dictionaries: