on 'Society and the Individual' by E.H.Carr
This is my attempt to understand EH Carr's Chapter on 'The society and the individual' by articulating my thoughts about it. There are mainly two arguments that the chapter seeks to make. The first is whether the historian himself is an individual. The second is whether history itself is made by great men or not. Carr's reaction to both of these is in the negative, with a little bit of nuance to it. The first movement is to point out the false dichotomy in statements like those made by John Mill that "individuals are not different when brought together". This implies that there is a possibility of an individual without society or a society without an individual, which is impossible. 'No man is an island onto himself'. Though we may express our individuality in the ultimate freedom by commiting suicide as shown by the protagonist in Dostoevsky's devil, it is still bound by social forces. The author points out that ethnonationalism based on racia...