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Individualism

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism makes the individual its focus, and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation".

Individualism is often defined in contrast to totalitarianism, collectivism and more corporate social forms.

Individualism has been used as a term denoting "[t]he quality of being an individual; individuality", related to possessing "[a]n individual characteristic; a quirk". Individualism is also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self-creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors It is also associated with humanist philosophical positions and ethics.

Etymology
In the English language, the word individualism was first introduced as a pejorative by utopian socialists such as the Owenites in the late 1830s, although it is unclear if they were influenced by Saint-Simonianism or came up with it independently. A more positive use of the term in Britain came to be used with the writings of James Elishama Smith, who was a millenarian and a Christian Israelite. Although an early follower of Robert Owen, he eventually rejected Owen's collective idea of property and found in individualism a "universalism" that allowed for the development of the "original genius". Without individualism, Smith argued that individuals cannot amass property to increase one's happiness. William Maccall, another Unitarian preacher and probably an acquaintance of Smith, came somewhat later, although influenced by John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle and German Romanticism, to the same positive conclusions in his 1847 work Elements of Individualism.

Individual
An individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person" as in "the problem of proper names". From the 17th century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individuated being; a person separated from everything with unique character by possessing their own needs, goals, and desires in comparison to other people.

Individuation principle
The principle of individuation, or principium individuationis, describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinguished from other things. For Carl Jung, individuation is a process of transformation, whereby the personal and collective unconscious is brought into consciousness (by means of dreams, active imagination or free association to take examples) to be assimilated into the whole personality. It is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche to take place. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development. In L'individuation psychique et collective, Gilbert Simondon developed a theory of individual and collective individuation in which the individual subject is considered as an effect of individuation rather than a cause. Thus, the individual atom is replaced by a never-ending ontological process of individuation. Individuation is an always incomplete process, always leaving a "pre-individual" left-over, itself making possible future individuations. The philosophy of Bernard Stiegler draws upon and modifies the work of Gilbert Simondon on individuation and also upon similar ideas in Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. For Stiegler, "the I, as a psychic individual, can only be thought in relationship to we, which is a collective individual. The I is constituted in adopting a collective tradition, which it inherits and in which a plurality of I's acknowledge each other's existence."

Individualism and society
Individualism holds that a person taking part in society attempts to learn and discover what their own interests are on a personal basis, without a presumed following of the interests of a societal structure (an individualist need not be an egoist). The individualist does not necessarily follow one particular philosophy. They may create an amalgamation of elements of many philosophies, based on personal interests in particular aspects that they find of use. On a societal level, the individualist participates on a personally structured political and moral ground. Independent thinking and opinion is a necessary trait of an individualist. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, claims that his concept of general will in The Social Contract is not the simple collection of individual wills and that it furthers the interests of the individual (the constraint of law itself would be beneficial for the individual, as the lack of respect for the law necessarily entails, in Rousseau's eyes, a form of ignorance and submission to one's passions instead of the preferred autonomy of reason).

Individualism versus collectivism is a common dichotomy in cross-cultural research. Global comparative studies have found that the world's cultures vary in the degree to which they emphasize individual autonomy, freedom and initiative (individualistic traits), respectively conformity to group norms, maintaining traditions and obedience to in-group authority (collectivistic traits). Cultural differences between individualism and collectivism are differences in degrees, not in kind. Cultural individualism is strongly correlated with GDP per capita and venture capital investments. The cultures of economically developed regions such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea,  North America and Western Europe are the most individualistic in the world. Middle income regions such as Eastern Europe, South America and mainland East Asia have cultures which are neither very individualistic nor very collectivistic. The most collectivistic cultures in the world are from economically developing regions such as the Middle East and Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, Central Asia and Central America.

An earlier analysis by Ruth Benedict in her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword states that societies and groups can differ in the extent to which they are based upon predominantly "self-regarding" (individualistic, and/or self-interested) behaviors, rather than "other-regarding" (group-oriented, and group, or society-minded) behaviors. Ruth Benedict made a distinction, relevant in this context, between guilt societies (e.g. medieval Europe) with an "internal reference standard" and shame societies (e.g. Japan, "bringing shame upon one's ancestors") with an "external reference standard", where people look to their peers for feedback on whether an action is acceptable or not.

Individualism is often contrasted either with totalitarianism or with collectivism, but there is a spectrum of behaviors at the societal level ranging from highly individualistic societies through mixed societies to collectivist.

Competitive individualism
According to an Oxford Dictionary, "competitive individualism" in sociology is "the view that achievement and non-achievement should depend on merit. Effort and ability are regarded as prerequisites of success. Competition is seen as an acceptable means of distributing limited resources and rewards.

Methodological individualism
Methodological individualism is the view that phenomena can only be understood by examining how they result from the motivations and actions of individual agents. In economics, people's behavior is explained in terms of rational choices, as constrained by prices and incomes. The economist accepts individuals' preferences as givens. Becker and Stigler provide a forceful statement of this view: "On the traditional view, an explanation of economic phenomena that reaches a difference in tastes between people or times is the terminus of the argument: the problem is abandoned at this point to whoever studies and explains tastes (psychologists? anthropologists? phrenologists? sociobiologists?). On our preferred interpretation, one never reaches this impasse: the economist continues to search for differences in prices or incomes to explain any differences or changes in behavior."

Political individualism
Individualists are chiefly concerned with protecting individual autonomy against obligations imposed by social institutions (such as the state or religious morality). For L. Susan Brown, "Liberalism and anarchism are two political philosophies that are fundamentally concerned with individual freedom yet differ from one another in very distinct ways. Anarchism shares with liberalism a radical commitment to individual freedom while rejecting liberalism's competitive property relations."

Civil libertarianism is a strain of political thought that supports civil liberties, or which emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority (such as a state, a corporation and social norms imposed through peer pressure, among others). Civil libertarianism is not a complete ideology; rather, it is a collection of views on the specific issues of civil liberties and civil rights. Because of this, a civil libertarian outlook is compatible with many other political philosophies, and civil libertarianism is found on both the right and left in modern politics. For scholar Ellen Meiksins Wood, "there are doctrines of individualism that are opposed to Lockean individualism [...] and non-Lockean individualism may encompass socialism".

British historians such as Emily Robinson, Camilla Schofield, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Natalie Thomlinson have argued that Britons were keen about defining and claiming their individual rights, identities and perspectives by the 1970s, demanding greater personal autonomy and self-determination and less outside control, angrily complaining that the establishment was withholding it. Historians argue that this shift in concerns helped cause Thatcherism and was incorporated into Thatcherism's appeal.

Anarchism
Within anarchism, individualist anarchism represents several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies that sometimes are in conflict.

In 1793, William Godwin, who has often been cited as the first anarchist, wrote Political Justice, which some consider to be the first expression of anarchism. Godwin, a philosophical anarchist, from a rationalist and utilitarian basis opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labour be eliminated on the premise that this would be most conducive with the general good.

An influential form of individualist anarchism called egoism, or egoist anarchism, was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, the German Max Stirner. Stirner's The Ego and Its Own, published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. According to Stirner, the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, without regard for God, state, or morality. To Stirner, rights were spooks in the mind, and he held that society does not exist but "the individuals are its reality". Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will, which Stirner proposed as a form of organization in place of the state. Egoist anarchists claim that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals. Egoist anarchism has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT activist John Henry Mackay.

Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist and The Peaceful Revolutionist, the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, was the first anarchist periodical published. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". Henry David Thoreau was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher and leading transcendentalist, who is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Later, Benjamin Tucker fused Stirner's egoism with the economics of Warren and Proudhon in his eclectic influential publication Liberty.

From these early influences, anarchism and especially individualist anarchism was related to the issues of love and sex. In different countries, this attracted a small but diverse following of bohemian artists and intellectuals, free love and birth control advocates, individualist naturists nudists as in anarcho-naturism, freethought and anti-clerical activists as well as young anarchist outlaws in what came to be known as illegalism and individual reclamation,  especially within European individualist anarchism and individualist anarchism in France. These authors and activists included Oscar Wilde, Émile Armand, Han Ryner, Henri Zisly, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Giménez Igualada, Adolf Brand and Lev Chernyi among others. In his important essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism from 1891, Wilde defended socialism as the way to guarantee individualism and so he saw that "[w]ith the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all". For anarchist historian George Woodcock, "Wilde's aim in The Soul of Man Under Socialism is to seek the society most favorable to the artist. [...] for Wilde art is the supreme end, containing within itself enlightenment and regeneration, to which all else in society must be subordinated. [...] Wilde represents the anarchist as aesthete". Woodcock finds that "[t]he most ambitious contribution to literary anarchism during the 1890s was undoubtedly Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism" and finds that it is influenced mainly by the thought of William Godwin.

Autarchism
Autarchism promotes the principles of individualism, the moral ideology of individual liberty and self-reliance whilst rejecting compulsory government and supporting the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself to the exclusion of rule by others. Robert LeFevre, recognized as an autarchist by anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, distinguished autarchism from anarchy, whose economics he felt entailed interventions contrary to freedom in contrast to his own laissez-faire economics of the Austrian School.

Liberalism
Liberalism is thought "that attaches [and advances the] importance...[of]...the civil and political rights of individuals and their freedoms of speech and expression." This belief is widely accepted in the United States, Europe, Australia and other Western nations, and was recognized as an important value by many Western philosophers throughout history, in particular since the Enlightenment. It is often rejected by collectivist ideas such as in Abrahamic or Confucian societies, although Taoists were and are known to be individualists. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote praising "the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed".

Liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejects many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. John Locke and Montesquieu are often credited with the philosophical foundations of classical liberalism, a political ideology inspired by the broader liberal movement. He wrote "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."

In the 17th century, liberal ideas began to influence European governments in nations such as the Netherlands, Switzerland, England and Poland, but they were strongly opposed, often by armed might, by those who favored absolute monarchy and established religion. In the 18th century, the first modern liberal state was founded without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy in the United States of America. The US Declaration of Independence includes the words which echo Locke that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to insure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Liberalism comes in many forms. According to John N. Gray, the essence of liberalism is toleration of different beliefs and of different ideas as to what constitutes a good life.

Liberalism generally values differing political opinions, even if they clash and cause discord.

Egoist anarchism

Egoist anarchism is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a 19th-century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism." According to Stirner, the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, without regard for God, state, or morality. Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will which Stirner proposed as a form of organisation in place of the state.

Egoist anarchists argue that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals. Egoism has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy, but it has also gone beyond Stirner within anarchism. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT activist John Henry Mackay. John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called "Egoism" in which he states that "Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual." Stirner and Nietzsche, who exerted influence on anarchism despite its opposition, were frequently compared by French "literary anarchists" and anarchist interpretations of Nietzschean ideas appear to have also been influential in the United States.

Ethical egoism
Ethical egoism, also called simply egoism, is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people do only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism which holds merely that it is rational to act in one's self-interest. However, these doctrines may occasionally be combined with ethical egoism.

Ethical egoism contrasts with ethical altruism, which holds that moral agents have an obligation to help and serve others. Egoism and altruism both contrast with ethical utilitarianism, which holds that a moral agent should treat one's self (also known as the subject) with no higher regard than one has for others (as egoism does, by elevating self-interests and "the self" to a status not granted to others), but that one also should not (as altruism does) sacrifice one's own interests to help others' interests, so long as one's own interests (i.e. one's own desires or well-being) are substantially-equivalent to the others' interests and well-being. Egoism, utilitarianism, and altruism are all forms of consequentialism, but egoism and altruism contrast with utilitarianism, in that egoism and altruism are both agent-focused forms of consequentialism (i.e. subject-focused or subjective), but utilitarianism is called agent-neutral (i.e. objective and impartial) as it does not treat the subject's (i.e. the self's, i.e. the moral "agent's") own interests as being more or less important than if the same interests, desires, or well-being were anyone else's.

Ethical egoism does not require moral agents to harm the interests and well-being of others when making moral deliberation, e.g. what is in an agent's self-interest may be incidentally detrimental, beneficial, or neutral in its effect on others. Individualism allows for others' interest and well-being to be disregarded or not as long as what is chosen is efficacious in satisfying the self-interest of the agent. Nor does ethical egoism necessarily entail that in pursuing self-interest one ought always to do what one wants to do, e.g. in the long term the fulfilment of short-term desires may prove detrimental to the self. Fleeting pleasance then takes a back seat to protracted eudaemonia. In the words of James Rachels, "[e]thical egoism [...] endorses selfishness, but it doesn't endorse foolishness."

Ethical egoism is sometimes the philosophical basis for support of libertarianism or individualist anarchism as in Max Stirner, although these can also be based on altruistic motivations. These are political positions based partly on a belief that individuals should not coercively prevent others from exercising freedom of action.

Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a number of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who generally held, despite profound doctrinal differences, that the focus of philosophical thought should be to deal with the conditions of existence of the individual person and his or her emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts. The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, posthumously regarded as the father of existentialism, maintained that the individual solely has the responsibilities of giving one's own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely,  in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation and boredom.

Subsequent existential philosophers retain the emphasis on the individual, but differ in varying degrees on how one achieves and what constitutes a fulfilling life, what obstacles must be overcome, and what external and internal factors are involved, including the potential consequences of the existence or non-existence of God. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy in both style and content as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience. Existentialism became fashionable after World War II as a way to reassert the importance of human individuality and freedom.

Nietzsche's concept of the superman is closely related to the idea of individualism and the pursuit of one's own unique path and potential. As is seen in the following quote, the concept of superman reflects Nietzsche's emphasis on the need to overcome traditional moral and societal norms in order to achieve personal growth and self-realization:

Freethought
Freethought holds that individuals should not accept ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. Thus, freethinkers strive to build their opinions on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry and logical principles, independent of any logical fallacies or intellectually limiting effects of authority, confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism, tradition, urban legend and all other dogmas. Regarding religion, freethinkers hold that there is insufficient evidence to scientifically validate the existence of supernatural phenomena.

Humanism
Humanism is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to authority. Since the 19th century, humanism has been associated with an anti-clericalism inherited from the 18th-century Enlightenment philosophes. 21st century Humanism tends to strongly endorse human rights, including reproductive rights, gender equality, social justice, and the separation of church and state. The term covers organized non-theistic religions, secular humanism, and a humanistic life stance.

Hedonism
Philosophical hedonism is a meta-ethical theory of value which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic bad. The basic idea behind hedonistic thought is that pleasure (an umbrella term for all inherently likable emotions) is the only thing that is good in and of itself or by its very nature. This implies evaluating the moral worth of character or behavior according to the extent that the pleasure it produces exceeds the pain it entails.

Libertinism
A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behaviour sanctified by the larger society. Libertines place value on physical pleasures, meaning those experienced through the senses. As a philosophy, libertinism gained new-found adherents in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, particularly in France and Great Britain. Notable among these were John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester and the Marquis de Sade. During the Baroque era in France, there existed a freethinking circle of philosophers and intellectuals who were collectively known as libertinage érudit and which included Gabriel Naudé, Élie Diodati and François de La Mothe Le Vayer. The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester's libertinism to Hobbesian materialism.

Objectivism
Objectivism is a system of philosophy created by philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand which holds that reality exists independent of consciousness; human beings gain knowledge rationally from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic; the moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest. Rand thinks the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez-faire capitalism; and the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form – a work of art – that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally. Objectivism celebrates man as his own hero, "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Philosophical anarchism

Philosophical anarchism is an anarchist school of thought which contends that the state lacks moral legitimacy. In contrast to revolutionary anarchism, philosophical anarchism does not advocate violent revolution to eliminate it but advocates peaceful evolution to superate it. Although philosophical anarchism does not necessarily imply any action or desire for the elimination of the state, philosophical anarchists do not believe that they have an obligation or duty to obey the state, or conversely that the state has a right to command.

Philosophical anarchism is a component especially of individualist anarchism. Philosophical anarchists of historical note include Mohandas Gandhi, William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Benjamin Tucker and Henry David Thoreau. Contemporary philosophical anarchists include A. John Simmons and Robert Paul Wolff.

Subjectivism
Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms such as solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. In the proposition 5.632 of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: "The subject doesn't belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world". Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (subjective idealism). In probability, a subjectivism stands for the belief that probabilities are simply degrees-of-belief by rational agents in a certain proposition and which have no objective reality in and of themselves.

Ethical subjectivism stands in opposition to moral realism, which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; to error theory, which denies that any moral propositions are true in any sense; and to non-cognitivism, which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all. The most common forms of ethical subjectivism are also forms of moral relativism, with moral standards held to be relative to each culture or society, i.e. cultural relativism, or even to every individual. The latter view, as put forward by Protagoras, holds that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are subjects in the world. Moral subjectivism is that species of moral relativism that relativizes moral value to the individual subject.

Horst Matthai Quelle was a Spanish-language German anarchist philosopher influenced by Max Stirner. Quelle argued that since the individual gives form to the world, he is those objects, the others and the whole universe. One of his main views was a "theory of infinite worlds" which for him was developed by pre-socratic philosophers.

Solipsism
Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from Latin solus ("alone") and ipse ("self"). Solipsism as an epistemological position holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist. Solipsism is the only epistemological position that, by its own postulate, is both irrefutable and yet indefensible in the same manner. Although the number of individuals sincerely espousing solipsism has been small, it is not uncommon for one philosopher to accuse another's arguments of entailing solipsism as an unwanted consequence, in a kind of reductio ad absurdum. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a skeptical hypothesis.

Economic individualism
The doctrine of economic individualism holds that each individual should be allowed autonomy in making his or her own economic decisions as opposed to those decisions being made by the community, the corporation or the state for him or her.

Classical liberalism
Liberalism is a political ideology that developed in the 19th century in the Americas, England, France and Western Europe. It followed earlier forms of liberalism in its commitment to personal freedom and popular government, but differed from earlier forms of liberalism in its commitment to classical economics and free markets.

Notable liberals in the 19th century include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. Classical liberalism, sometimes also used as a label to refer to all forms of liberalism before the 20th century, was revived in the 20th century by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and further developed by Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick, Loren Lomasky and Jan Narveson.

Libertarianism
Libertarianism upholds liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing free association, freedom of choice, individualism and voluntary association. Libertarianism shares a skepticism of authority and state power, but libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of libertarianism. This is done to distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines.

Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism represents several related yet distinct approaches to politics, society, culture and political and social theory which stress both individual and political freedom alongside social justice. Unlike right-libertarians, left-libertarians believe that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights, and maintain that natural resources (land, oil, gold, trees) ought to be held in some egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Those left-libertarians who support property do so under different property norms   and theories,   or under the condition that recompense is offered to the local or global community.

Related terms include egalitarian libertarianism, left-wing libertarianism, libertarianism, libertarian socialism,  social libertarianism and socialist libertarianism. Left-libertarianism can refer generally to these related and overlapping schools of thought:
 * Anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics, in particular within the socialist movement, usually known as libertarian socialism.
 * Geolibertarianism, an American synthesis of libertarianism and Georgism.
 * Left-wing market anarchism, stressing the socially transformative potential of non-aggression and anti-capitalist freed markets.
 * Steiner–Vallentyne school, named after Hillel Steiner and Peter Vallentyne, whose proponents draw conclusions from classical liberal or market liberal premises.

Right-libertarianism
Right-libertarianism represents either non-collectivist forms of libertarianism or a variety of different libertarian views that scholars label to the right of libertarianism such as libertarian conservatism. Related terms include conservative libertarianism,  libertarian capitalism and right-wing libertarianism. In the mid-20th century, right-libertarian ideologies such as anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opted the term libertarian to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. The latter is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States, where it advocates civil liberties, natural law, free-market capitalism and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.

Socialism

With regard to economic questions within individualist socialist schools such as individualist anarchism, there are adherents to mutualism (Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Émile Armand and early Benjamin Tucker); natural rights positions (early Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner and Josiah Warren); and egoistic disrespect for "ghosts" such as private property and markets (Max Stirner, John Henry Mackay, Lev Chernyi, later Benjamin Tucker, Renzo Novatore and illegalism). Contemporary individualist anarchist Kevin Carson characterizes American individualist anarchism saying that "[u]nlike the rest of the socialist movement, the individualist anarchists believed that the natural wage of labor in a free market was its product, and that economic exploitation could only take place when capitalists and landlords harnessed the power of the state in their interests. Thus, individualist anarchism was an alternative both to the increasing statism of the mainstream socialist movement, and to a classical liberal movement that was moving toward a mere apologetic for the power of big business."

Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism, sometimes dubbed left-libertarianism and socialist libertarianism, is an anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian tradition within the socialist movement that rejects the state socialist conception of socialism as a statist form where the state retains centralized control of the economy. Libertarian socialists criticize wage slavery relationships within the workplace, emphasizing workers' self-management of the workplace and decentralized structures of political organization.

Libertarian socialism asserts that a society based on freedom and justice can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. Libertarian socialists advocate for decentralized structures based on direct democracy and federal or confederal associations such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils.

All of this is generally done within a general call for liberty and free association through the identification, criticism and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of human life. Within the larger socialist movement, libertarian socialism seeks to distinguish itself from Leninism and social democracy.

Past and present currents and movements commonly described as libertarian socialist include anarchism (especially anarchist schools of thought such as anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, collectivist anarchism, green anarchism, individualist anarchism,   mutualism, and social anarchism) as well as communalism, some forms of democratic socialism, guild socialism, libertarian Marxism (autonomism, council communism, left communism, and Luxemburgism, among others),  participism, revolutionary syndicalism and some versions of utopian socialism.

Mutualism
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought which can be traced to the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a socialist society where each person possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market. Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank which would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate only high enough to cover the costs of administration. Mutualism is based on a labor theory of value which holds that when labor or its product is sold, it ought to receive goods or services in exchange embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility" and that receiving anything less would be considered exploitation, theft of labor, or usury.

Criticisms
The Greek philosopher Plato emphasized that individuals must adhere to laws and perform duties while declining to grant individuals rights to limit or reject state interference in their lives.

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel criticized individualism by claiming that human self-consciousness relies on recognition from others, therefore embracing a holistic view and rejecting the idea of the world as a collection of atomized individuals.

Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness.

Pope Francis criticised a "me"-centred form of individualism in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato si':"Men and women of our postmodern world run the risk of rampant individualism, and many problems of society are connected with today's self-centred culture of instant gratification." As an example he comments on parents who "can be prone to impulsive and wasteful consumption, which then affects their children who find it increasingly difficult to acquire a home of their own and build a family.

As creative independent lifestyle
The anarchist writer and bohemian Oscar Wilde wrote in his famous essay The Soul of Man under Socialism that "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine." For anarchist historian George Woodcock, "Wilde's aim in The Soul of Man under Socialism is to seek the society most favorable to the artist, [...] for Wilde art is the supreme end, containing within itself enlightenment and regeneration, to which all else in society must be subordinated. [...] Wilde represents the anarchist as aesthete." In this way, individualism has been used to denote a personality with a strong tendency towards self-creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors.

Anarchist writer Murray Bookchin describes a lot of individualist anarchists as people who "expressed their opposition in uniquely personal forms, especially in fiery tracts, outrageous behavior, and aberrant lifestyles in the cultural ghettos of fin de siècle New York, Paris, and London. As a credo, individualist anarchism remained largely a bohemian lifestyle, most conspicuous in its demands for sexual freedom ('free love') and enamored of innovations in art, behavior, and clothing."

In relation to this view of individuality, French individualist anarchist Émile Armand advocated egoistical denial of social conventions and dogmas to live in accord to one's own ways and desires in daily life since he emphasized anarchism as a way of life and practice. In this way, he opined that "the anarchist individualist tends to reproduce himself, to perpetuate his spirit in other individuals who will share his views and who will make it possible for a state of affairs to be established from which authoritarianism has been banished. It is this desire, this will, not only to live, but also to reproduce oneself, which we shall call 'activity.'"

In the book Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of Humanism, humanist philosopher Tzvetan Todorov identifies individualism as an important current of socio-political thought within modernity and as examples of it he mentions Michel de Montaigne, François de La Rochefoucauld, Marquis de Sade, and Charles Baudelaire. In La Rochefoucauld, he identifies a tendency similar to stoicism in which "the honest person works his being in the manner of a sculptor who searches the liberation of the forms which are inside a block of marble, to extract the truth of that matter." In Baudelaire, he finds the dandy trait in which one searches to cultivate "the idea of beauty within oneself, of satisfying one's passions of feeling and thinking."

The Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky once wrote that "[t]he surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even – if you will – eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with." Ralph Waldo Emerson famously declared that "[w]hoso would be a man must be a nonconformist" – a point of view developed at length in both the life and work of Henry David Thoreau. Equally memorable and influential on Walt Whitman is Emerson's idea that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Emerson opposed on principle the reliance on civil and religious social structures precisely because through them the individual approaches the divine second-hand, mediated by the once original experience of a genius from another age. According to Emerson, "[an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." To achieve this original relation, Emerson stated that one must "[i]nsist on one's self; never imitate", for if the relationship is secondary the connection is lost.

Religion
People in Western countries tend to be more individualistic than communitarian. The authors of one study proposed that this difference is due in part to the influence of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. They pointed specifically to its bans on incest, cousin marriage, adoption, and remarriage, and its promotion of the nuclear family over the extended family.

The Catholic Church teaches "if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us ... our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome" Many Catholics have believed Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation were sources of individualism.

title: Individualism


text:
Talk:Indo-European languages

minor mistake on map legend
baltic (blue) and slavic (green) are shown separately on the map. according to the map legend though green shows "balto-slavic" spread.

Page content changes
Could we make a change where instead of showing the evolution of PIE to English as the example, it’s PIE to Portuguese instead? 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:94DC:3747:D33E:5B16 (talk) 20:34, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Por que no los dos? —Tamfang (talk) 22:42, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Albanian and Messapic
You repeatedly claim that the inclusion of Albanian and Messapic in a unified branch of the IE languages is the "mainstream view". I am aware that this is a widely held view in Albanian studies, often cited/echoed but rarely expounded with comparative evidence that fulfils the only valid criterion for subgrouping, i.e. exclusively shared innovations. But things are not as easy from the Indo-Europeanist perspective. In order to evaluate the mainstream view per WP:RS/AC, I am aware of three books published in the last ten years that cover the Indo-European languages in their entirety and address the question of the relation between Albanian and Messapic.

Starting with the most recent, there is Olander (2022), The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. The relevant chapter is "Albanian" by Hyllested & Joseph who write:

Then there's Rusakov's chapter "Albanian" in Kapović's Routledge Handbook The Indo-European Languages:

And then there's three-volume Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics edited by Klein, Joseph and Fritz. The question of the affiliation of Messapic is mentioned in two chapters, "The lexicon of Albanian" by Matzinger and "Messapic" by de Simone, which represent the two poles of assessment within Indo-European studies:
 * Matzinger:

 * De Simone:

So where does the mainstream view of Indo-Europeanists stand here? Messapic is only fragmentarily attested, so there are limited comparanda to start with. Those that have been found (mainly by Hamp, and further pruned and refined by Matzinger) are very compelling, but as Hyllested & Joseph summarize: "in the absence of sufficient evidence, that connection must remain speculative", which is a statement that I think we can safely echo in Wikivoice, more than anything else.

I don't say we shouldn't embolden ourselves to mention the proposed Albanian–Messapic branch in the infobox. But then we must qualify its status and also include Graeco-Phrygian, which has a much better established evidential base than Albanian–Messapic, not only because of the larger corpus of Phrygian in comparison to Messapic, but also the depth of study devoted to it. I haven't seen anything comparable to Obrador-Cursach's work on Graeco–Phrygian when it comes to Albanian–Messapic comparisons (and this includes all sources mentioned in the stock cite bomb that has been placed over multiple articles). In any case, Albanian–Messapic is certainly not an unequivocally established branch of the IE family on par with Indo-Iranian or Balto-Slavic.

Pinging also @, who has contested the recent inclusion of Albanian–Messapic in the infobox as an established fact and @ who made the relevant modifications in 08 June 2024. Austronesier (talk) 10:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Indo-European linguistics is really not my area of expertise, but if scholars are describing the grouping as speculative, we should reflect that cautiousness. I'm not opposed to including Albanoid in the infobox, but it should include a question mark to indicate its tentativeness, and Albanian and Messapic should be listed as subgroups of it in the main infobox. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello, the Albanian-Messapic relation is the one proposed in the recently published Indo-European phylogenetic trees, although it is considered inconclusive by some. But above all, there are many examples of common features between Albanian and Messapic that indicate their close relationship, and there are fiew or none that suggest otherwise. That relationship is also strongly indicated by recent archaeogenetic studies. Anyway, since many scholars say that the relationship is often supported by linguists, I thought not mentioning Messapic in the infobox would be better than mentioning it as a separate IE branch. But I do agree that a clarification in the infobox would solve the issue. Also the clarification about the Graeco-Phrygian relation needs to be included. Hemiauchenia's edit edit seems good. – Βατο (talk) 11:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This looks like a good solution to me as it reflects the assessment of a very good and recent source. The Albanian–Messapic hypothesis is the best we have at this time, given the limited material about Messapic as of now. I'm optimistic that research will eventually bring more light to the question as more Messapic inscriptions continue to be discovered, and my hunch is that it will eventually raise the status of Albanian–Messapic from "speculative" to "proven". –Austronesier (talk) 16:14, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * < ALL Indo-European languages share "common features between Albanian and Messapic that indicate their close relationship". So this is not convincing at all.HJJHolm (talk) 14:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you saying these two have no features shared with each other and not with all recognized IE branches? —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hamp collected quite a number of shared features between Messapic and Albanian. Among these, Matzinger identified around 5 exclusively shared innovations. Not many, but still remarkable given the small size of the Messapic corpus. The other common features are either shared retentions from PIE or shared on a more limited level with other IE languages. While these not exclusively shared features are of course non-diagnostic for subgrouping, nothing in the phonological and morphpological histories of Messapic and (Proto-)Albanian indicates that they went completely different ways that would contradict a close relationship between the two. –Austronesier (talk) 06:24, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Changing example of evolution of Proto-Indo-European
Two times before, I changed the example of evolution from PIE into a modern language. I did this because I really don't like using English as an example for any particular topic. Can we allow changing the example language, maybe to Czech as with my edits? 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:8083:AAB1:FA58:1588 (talk) 19:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Can you justify your changes with much beyond "I don't like it"? Surely there's an argument that English-language examples are most immediately helpful and instructive for an English-language readership? Remsense  诉  19:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See also Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet and Talk:Duodecimal. —Tamfang (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Chang family tree
Phylogeny of Chang et al. (2015): This team published 18 versions without deciding for one of these as their choice. So - which phylogeny is this? And why this one??HJJHolm (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Indo-European languages


text:
Talk:Intersex/Archive 2

Comments
Debates from 2004 removed to Talk:Intersexual/Archive 2004 -- AlexR 10:23, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, look I am an intersexed-female and I appreciate all the information about the issue but unless you are intersexed you have no idea of what it is like other than what you read. It is ridiculous to believe only men and women exist, there are more than 2 sexes and that is a fact. My driver's license has an X under where it says "sex" so that should tell you something right there. Society doesn't understand this to its fullest extent yet but I hope that someday they will. I know many intersexed people and none of us can get ourselves pregnant, that is the more ignorant thing I ever heard in regards to this issue. Even if such things were possible there is absolutely no way the offspring would develop normally...it doesn't happen! Otherwise bravo to those who stick with the facts about this and keep an open-mind enough to accept us for who we are not what we are. Your kindness is appreciated! User:134.129.154.67
 * Actually, depending on the condition, intersex females can get pregnant, people with AGS for example, just as some intersex males can father children. (Those kids do turn out normal, as well, at least all I heard of.) However, I agree, the mayority (in terms of medical conditions) of intersex people can not get pregnant or father children. Oh, and input into the articles is always appreciated. -- AlexR 07:42, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * ("ags" is an old abbreviation for "adrenogenital syndrome", which has been superceded by congenital adrenal hyperplasia) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cherylchase (talk • contribs).

 * I think the original commenter was referring to self-impregnation, which can be possible in hermaphroditic animals but is a myth in regards to intersexed humans. -Emiellaiendiay 23:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

"Elevating the sex chromosomes above all other factors may be the 21st century parallel of the mistake made by the Victorians who located "true" sex in the gonads." The word 'Victorian' is charged and has negative connotations, especially when used in a sexual context (e.g. repressed, reactionary, backwards, wrong, etc). The word 'mistake' isn't so hot, either. I'm changing it to read "The common habit in the 21st century of elevating the role of the sex chromosomes above all other factors when determining gender may be analogous to the older habit of finding "true" sex in the gonads." --63.167.237.65 20:02, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why bother to change one erroneous statement for another? No medical authority of the late 20th or 21st century "elevates sex chromosomes above all other factors" in the context of "determining gender" in intersex conditions. Why would you even want to claim such an absurdity? alteripse 03:25, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I think we should just scratch the whole paragraph. "Though high school biology teaches that men have XY and women XX chromosomes, in fact there are quite a few other possible combinations such as XO, XXX, XXY, XYY, XO/XY, XX male, XY female, and there are many individuals who do not follow the typical patterns (such as cases with four or even more sex chromosomes)."... My HighSchool Teachers/Books taught XY & XX, but the next page went through the possibility for mutations. If it(XXX,XXY,etc) is skipped it's most likely to avoid confusion and not promote solid genders. I'm having a hard time accepting that paragraph, it sounds like a hit against the scientific community for no reason. If your talking about the general public and not the scientists who follow the XY/XX generality, thats a different ballpark. A group of itelligent people and a group of idiots come to a simmilar conclusion; thus the general public are idiots and we should ignore their opinions.

Popular usage vs correct phrase
The original sentence was exactly the same as the one below, I only added the last six words, in order to clarify a point. "Some have attacked the common Western practice of performing corrective surgery on the genitals of intersexuals as a Western cultural equivalent of female genital mutilation, more properly termed female genital cutting."

The main reason being that FGM is just not a correct term to use, but I do not think that it should be removed. The reason I kept it is because FGC is normally called FGM in Western media, and that is how a number of people would recognize it. PLEASE, don't start a debate about this one word here. There are very well documented and extensive arguments about this in a number of articles already. Keeping the note about female genital cutting being the proper term is not hurting anything, and I believe that it would be helpful to someone who knew nothing about the subject. Sparkleiya 10:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Reverted - whether a term is "more proper" than another very quickly becomes POV. So you can give an alternative term, but kindly done come up with that "more proper" stuff until you have really good souces for it. -- AlexR 16:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * And you think that declaring another culture's practices "mutilation" is NPOV? The first thing is that, as you might have noticed, female genital mutilation redirects to female genital cutting. However, seeing as most people don't click on every single link in the article to find out what they redirect to, it would be nice to include this tidbit of information. The reasoning is that information like this is *not* picked up in everyday interactions (such as reading the news, etc), or else debates like this wouldn't be happening in the first place.

 * This is discussed more extensively in the talk page on female genital cutting, done quite well in the section "Why 'Female Circumcision' Is A Questionable Title" but I will summarize. This is a passage from the UNFPA (seeing as you requested a source), which I lifted from the talk page on FGC.

 * Female genital cutting:
 * Recently, some organizations have opted to use the more neutral term ‘Female Genital Cutting’. This stems from the fact that communities that practice FGC often find the use of the term ‘mutilation’ demeaning since it seems to indicate malice on the part of parents or circumcisers. The use of judgmental terminology bears the risk of creating a backlash, thus possibly causing an alienation of communities that practice FGC or even causing an actual increase in the number of girls being subjected to FGC. In this respect it should be noted that the Special Rapporteur on Traditional Practices (ECOSOC, Commission on Human Rights) recently called for tact and patience regarding FGC eradication activities and warned against the dangers of demonizing cultures under cover of condemning practices harmful to women and girls (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/14).

 * What phrasing do you suggest? I agree with you about using "more proper," I'm having difficulty thinking of a way to phrase it and still express the same idea. Sparkleiya 23:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * It's been over 2 weeks already and you have yet to respond with a better suggestion. I don't know whether you have no input on the matter or not, but I have waited a sufficient amount of time for a suggestion from you. I am going to change it to "more respectfully," Although something along the lines of "more accurately" would also be okay(but not as good). Sparkleiya 04:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

 * As I said in my edit summary, since we're talking about people making an analogy between surgery on intersexed babies and FGM in order to cast the former in a negative light, it makes sense to use the negative term. Whether the term is respectful is not really relevant, since we're talking about people who don't consider FGM acceptable. Besides, people who go to the article about FGM can read that some people prefer the term "female genital cutting". In fact, that's more or less all that the article about FGM says! Catamorphism 10:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

broken link
The "The Evolution of Self-Fertile Hermaphroditism: The Fog Is Clearing" link seems to be broken. - 66.53.174.248
 * Fixed - UtherSRG July 6, 2005 23:36 (UTC)

Original research paragraph
This paragraph bothers me:

 * Today, people looking for simple answers are more likely to have faith in the sex chromosomes than in gonadal histology. But in fact, sex is determined by a multitude of factors, and when these factors are inconsistent, no one factor can be thought to determine the "true" sex, if such a concept even exists.

Is there a citation here? Or are we just providing the opinion of wikipedia editors? If there's a cite, we should add it. If there is not, we should strike it as original research. Nandesuka 05:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I think you could remove the word today and make it more general. This is a true statement and supportable by research with the exception of the bit about 'people looking for simple answers are more likely to have faith in the sex chromosomes than in gonadal histology.' Though this, I believe is inferable from the behavior of people – for example the history of the IOC's 'sexing' of athletes, the TX law case that said for the purposes of marriage, chromosomes determine who can marry whom.

 * I have to get to work now, but if you like, I can find you a few citations tonight if no one else has yet. -NickGorton 13:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Sure, whenever you have time. The part of the sentence I find especially original researchy is the implication that  sex, as a biological concept, doesn't actually exist.Nandesuka
 * I've timed out on this and removed the offending paragraph. If someone provides references to a reputable source we can put it back in. Nandesuka 11:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

 * This sentence does not need a citation, because it is so basic that about every textbook on the matter will say the same thing. (Hence labeling that as original research is a suggestion that smells very much of either cluelessness or a political agenda.) Also, this paragraph does not state that a concept like biological sex might not exist, but it questions whether something like the "true" sex in cases of intersexuality does exist -- an entirely different pair of shoes. I'll try to clarify that paragraph, but I would appreciate if people feeling somehow "offended" would be actually read what they complain about, instead of removing what they obviously don't understand. -- AlexR 13:51, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

 * With all due respect, that is a ludicrous argument. If the statement is "so basic that about every textbook on the matter will say the same thing", then finding a citation to a reputable source will be trivial.  Regarding your insinuations regarding political agendas, I suggest that you start assuming good faith before starting the snarking.  What "offends" me about the sentence is not its content, but that it is not substantiated by any reference.  Please carefully review No original research, Cite sources, and Verifiability before inserting this claim again.  I understand that you believe that these statements are "true", but your believing that does not obviate the need for us to provide reference to credible and verifiable primary or secondary sources for the benefit of our readers.  I will gladly support the inclusion of this text or text similar to it, once we have citations to such sources as you say exist.  Regards, Nandesuka 14:36, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Naturally, I will revert your removal again - you cannot go through the WP removing everything that does not have a citation to back it up, since then you would have to remove about 90% of Wikipedia. Also, "No orignial research" simply does not apply here - you might be the one who has to re-read that page. This is not some crackpot theory, but a mere statement of fact. Hence, NOR is not an argument here. I might point out that it is even less of an argument when somebody tries to use it after "I am offended" and "It says X" (when it never did) didn't work. You are not the first one to try that, but you would be the first to succeed. -- AlexR 18:30, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

 * We are not discussing "90% of Wikipedia", but this article. "...people looking for simple answers are more likely to have faith in the sex chromosomes" is not a "mere statement of fact," but an unsubstantiated assertion.  And the first person in this conversation to introduce the term "offended" was, in fact, you.  (I called the paragraph the "offending paragaph", but that is an extremely common phrase that is not the same as saying something is personally offensive).  I would prefer to not engage in a revert war with you (or anyone) over this.  If these are basic facts, then provide a citation, please.  Thanks.  Nandesuka 18:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, you already are doing a revert war here, so what are you complaining about? If you find that a sentence could be phrased better, do so. Removing stuff because it is supposed to be "originial research" when it clearly isn't is not the answer. And providing a citation is a bit of a problem for me at least - first, I have little access to English books, being in Germany. And second, this is so old news that when I read it I had no idea that one day I had to bring up a citation for something so bloody basic and trivial to placate somebody who wants to remove every bit of non-cited information on Wikipedia, and starts a revert war over it, too. -- AlexR 08:16, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

If I may make some suggestions based on the current wording: "Therefore, currently people looking for simple answers are more likely to have faith in the sex chromosomes than for example in gonadal histology,"
 * As written, this implies that some research has been done (one can almost imagine a questionnaire asking people whether they're looking for simple answers, and in what they place their faith). I can't say for sure that such research hasn't been done, but it seems unlikely. A better wording, also improving the grammar, might be "Thus, those nowadays looking for simple answers may be more likely to look towards the sex chromosomes than, for example, the histology of the gonads".
 * However, even this version is still questionable. There are two main problems. First, while probably true, it does indeed appear to be an original conclusion. I've tried a few Internet searches, and the only pages discussing simple (or easy) answers and chromosomes are Wikipedia or its derivatives. I did find a page indicating that there are many different views on this subject. Unfortunately, this paragraph at present implies that most of these are too simplistic, which is not compatible with WP:NPOV.

"which was considered the one defining criterium at the beginning of the 10th century and after."
 * This cannot be correct. The microscope wasn't invented before the 16th century, so histology could not have been relevant. By the way, the correct word is criterion.

"However, sex is determined by a multitude of factors, and when these factors are inconsistent, no one factor can be thought to determine the "true" sex (to the exclusion of all other factors), if a "one true sex" even exists in intersex people."
 * This does endorse a particular point of view. Here are a few links.  How about this alternative: "However, according to Eric Villain, 'The biology of gender is far more complicated than XX or XY chromosomes' . Many different criterion for gender have been proposed, and there is little consensus."

- Jakew 11:07, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

To summarise, my proposed replacement is:
 * Thus, people nowadays may be more likely to look towards the sex chromosomes than, for example, the histology of the gonads. However, according to researcher Eric Villain, "the biology of gender is far more complicated than XX or XY chromosomes". Many differrent criteria have been proposed, and there is little consensus.

Comments? - Jakew 11:12, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

 * I like it. It is less POV, and provides a citation to a reputable source and thus is less original-researchy, which meets both of my criteria.  Thanks for stopping by to help out!  AlexR, do you find that text acceptable?  Nandesuka 11:55, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

 * It's a bit short, and I don't think that the reference to "researcher Eric Villain" is appropriate - since he is hardly the only person to make that claim. In fact, it is not so easy, except for researchers dedicated to chromosomes and chromosomes only, to find people who hold the other position. So that does need some more work. -- AlexR 23:38, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

"A valid third gender"
"Intersex is a valid third gender" - I reverted this comment this morning as I believe it may not have any basis in objective science or sociology ie; it may be just POV. I've no feelings on it one way or another, tho'? Discuss? Re-insert? - Ali-oops✍ 11:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I concur.  See also the question I asked in the last section, which there is (as of yet) no citation for. Nandesuka

Gender is a social construct, while sex is a physiological state. There is actually much research done into the fields of gender and sex, and most notably in the First Nations cultures, they do indeed have more than just two genders. Physiologically when referring to sex, we only have "male" and "female" and intersex as a state in between, but when it comes to gender we have to remember to think outside of North American culture and look to practices in the First Nations and cultural practices in Albania for example. I do disagree with the above statement, intersex as we define it here is a sex, not a gender, though there are alternate genders that could appeal to intersex individuals who may not feel like they conform in our dichotomous North American society. --Waterspyder 19:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

---

I just wanted to say thanks to all of the editors of this page, I think many Wikipedia editors go unthanked and this page has been very educational for me. Thanks!

List of transgender-related topics
Does the link to the list of transgender topics belong in the article? Being intersexed and transgendered are (generally) not related, and that seems to be the only place in the article where there's any link implied. Ejcoffin 21:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

 * I see that someone has removed the link to this list. I would argue that a link to the list should be included in the article, because intersexed people are more likely than the general population to identify as transgender or transsexual (due to the higher likelihood of their being assigned the wrong gender at birth), and because "intersexual" is included in the list of transgender-related topics. Catamorphism 05:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

 * There is a great deal of historical tension between trans people and intersex people in this area, or more accurately between trans activists and intersex activists. Transsexualism is sometimes cast as "psychological intersexuality", a characterisation that some intersex people find offensive because they see intersexuality as a strictly physical phenomenon; and trans people have been accused of using intersexuality as a cover. For their part, transsexuals sometimes hold resentment against intersex people because intersexuality is thought to be privileged as a "genuine" medical condition.  Intersex people who regard themselves firmly as men or women, especially those whose source of intersexing leaves them with visibly ambiguous or cross-gendered features, sometimes resent being treated as though they were transgender. Complicating the issue is that some intersex people do see themselves as transgender ar at any rate possessed of a non-binary gender identity; some trans people enter transition-related treatment and only then discover an underlying intersex condition; and there are some transgender people who regard themselves as male- or female-to-intersex transsexuals.  I've only scratched the surface; relations between the transgender and intersex populations can be quite strained, and the fact that the definitional line between the two can be a bit blurry doesn't help.

 * Whether or not intersexuality and transgender are linked phenomena, both raise similar issues in the area of gender, identity, social politics, and culture.  In a sense, each shines a light on the same area from a different direction.  For that reason, I think it's important for this link to remain. --7Kim 11:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

That's true that intersex people more often transgendered than the general population, but in my experience the majority of intersex people are okay with their birth genders. I'd think a note about the higher likelyhood would make sense (though I don't have anything to back it up), but I always get nervous at seeing intersexuality listed as a trans-related topic. If you think the link to the list belongs, go ahead and put it back :)  Bethling 03:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Swyer's syndrome
I removed the bullet that said that XY people with Swyers syndrome have a male body (habitus or phenotype). Just wrong, wrong, wrong. Swyer's women have a female habitus, streak gonads, a normal-length vagina, a uterus but no ovaries because they became streak gonads. They will have primary ammenorhea (no period), but with hormone treatment may choose to have a period if they wish. They will have no spontaneous puberty because there are no functioning sex organs to produce hormones. I know this because I once ran the Androgen Insensitiviy Support Group in North America. We supported AIS, Swyer's Syndrome, Myer-Rokitansky and other intersex conditions where the body type (and usually gender identity is female). In fact, given hormonal treatment and donated eggs, Swyer's women can successfully carry a pregnancy. However, this is an encyclopedia and must be based on veriable sources. Here is one on Swyer's. I can produce dozens more if needed. Source on Swyer's Syndrome: http://www.diseasesdatabase.com/umlsdef.asp?glngUserChoice=31464 Donna

In the opening paragraph it says (something like) "any uni-sexual species" - but it should obviously say "non-unisexual," or words to that extent. Can't figure out how to fix it though.

Unisexual is correct. It *sounds* like it should mean a species that only has a single gender, but it actually means a species in which there are multiple genders and each individual is one discrete gender. As opposed to asexual species which have no genders at all, or hermaphroditic species in which each species is both genders, either sequentially or simultaneously. --JaceCady 03:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm a little leery of this term, as it collides head-on with the common understanding of "unisex" (gender-blind or sexually ambiguous). Strictly accurate language would be "sexually dimorphic species", but that doesn't exactly roll trippingly off the tongue. --7Kim 09:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Article needs illustration
I really need a picture to appreciate exactly what "ambiguous genitalia" means. Could someone upload a drawing or a photo of such genitalia? Thx.

 * The problem with that is that there isn't just one kind of intersexual, so there would have to be a large collection of photographs/drawings, and even that would fail to encompass intersexuality. Even if someone were to try, in some cases the "ambiguity" is only inside the body, and thus a photograph would be inappropriate. Sparkleiya 08:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't think so - one could easily put in one picture and make it clear that this is one of the most obvious syndroms, and is not intended to cover all syndroms. -- AlexR 04:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

 * That could work, as long as you're careful to be very clear about it.

 * I don't think a picture is really "appropiate".

removed "by medical men"
I removed the phrase "by medical men" from the first paragraph, in the sentence, "The terms hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite, introduced by medical men in the 19th century, are now considered misleading and stigmatizing, and patient advocates call for these terms to be abandoned."

Why was that there? No one would ever say "medical men", unless they were specifically trying to point out that they were men as opposed to women. Since the context is pejorative, I consider this implicitly sexist, so I just removed it. If someone has a legitimate claim that their being men had something to do with them choosing the terms "hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite", then you can say so explicitly. -- Torgo 08:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, I was really surprised to see that this phrase ever persisted in the article at all! Thanks for removing it! Catamorphism 09:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Endless "politically correct" euphemisms
This seems to be one of those areas where, once given a name, that name acquires a stigma, then they choose a new name, and the process repeats itself. Just constantly changing the name won't keep most people from thinking it's weird and a bad thing. The only way to prevent that perception is if people have absolutely no idea what you mean by the term, which is apparently the goal. StuRat 21:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure what your comments have to do with improving this article. After all, as Wikipedians, we have to document how people use words; we don't get to dictate what words they should use. Catamorphism 21:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, if people really do refer to those with this condition as "intersex" individuals, then that's OK. However, I suspect that more people call them hermaphrodites and only a small minority are trying to change the word to "intersex".  In that case, we should ignore the PC lobby, and change the article name to hermaphrodite. StuRat 00:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia usually prefers the terms used by scientists or other experts who study a subject, when there is disagreement. In this case, "hermaphrodite" is a term that is used to describe animals of various species (sometimes used to describe species where hermaphrodism is normal), and "intersex" is a term that refers to the specific case of humans who are biologically not clearly male or female. I think it's useful to make the distinction, and most scientists who study gender and sex in humans agree. It doesn't really matter in this case what term "most people" use; we have an article called Nuclear weapon, but not one called Nukular weapon. Catamorphism 08:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * That example is a bit silly, of course misspellings are not to be given articles, although I suppose common enough misspellings might deserve a redirect to the article. And I disagree that the scientific name should be used instead of the common name.  We have an article on monarch butterfly, for example, and only a redirect at danaus plexippus.  Also, giving a different name to a disorder when it occurs in humans versus other animals doesn't make much scientific sense, I suspect that's all coming from pseudoscience and the PC crowd. StuRat 12:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * If you are so strongly convinced that modern scientists use the word "hermaphrodite" to describe humans, can you please point me to one published journal or conference paper in the field of biology that uses the word that way? Thanx. Catamorphism 20:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Have you read anything I've said ? I said that we should use what common people call them, not what scientist call them, the same as we do for butterflies.  Pay attention ! StuRat 01:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, I was particularly replying to your comment: "Also, giving a different name to a disorder when it occurs in humans versus other animals doesn't make much scientific sense, I suspect that's all coming from pseudoscience and the PC crowd." I was wondering whether you have any sources that support this assertion of yours, or whether it's grounded only in your paranoia about the "PC police". Catamorphism 02:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * If I had proof, I would have changed the article directly. Since I only have a suspicion, I just listed it here.  Whenever the name of some disorder changes constantly, like "crippled" to "handicapped" to "disabled" to "specially-abled", I most definitely suspect the PC police are at it again, don't you ? StuRat 20:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * No, I don't think that. I think that when people try to use different language for terms in order to make people feel as comfortable as possible, we should respect those efforts. Language has always evolved over time, even long before the notion of "political correctness" was introduced; not all words that were appropriate 50 years ago are, or need to be, appropriate now. In the case of this particular article, I think that if people who are intersexed want to be referred to as "intersex" or "intersexed" rather than as "hermaphrodites", then I don't have any reason to not respect their preference, and neither should anybody else. One reason for this, as I alluded to before, is that "hermaphrodite" is a word that encompasses animals of many different species. This is similar to how many Asian-Americans dislike the term "Oriental" because it is used to refer to carpets as well as people. Catamorphism 20:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

(Starting tabs over again.)

If we follow your logic, we also need different terms for cancer in people versus animals, for heart disease in animals versus people (and why not different names for hearts as well ?), etc. We also need a different name for European people to distinguish from European cars. This makes no sense to me. StuRat 20:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * If you've never been part of a group that has had fear and prejudice directed at it, I'd say it makes perfect sense to me that respecting people in marginalized groups makes no sense to you. People with cancer, people with heart disease, and European people have not been discriminated against by virtue of being in those groups (though people from specific parts of Europe might have been). Catamorphism 22:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * People with cancer and heart disease have been discriminated against by denying them jobs, and people of European descent have been discriminated against by Affirmative Action policies in the US that award jobs and scholarships to "people of color" (meaning everyone but whites). StuRat 01:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * LOL. Anyway, consensus is not going to smile upon you if you try and move this article to "hermaphrodite" or whatever you want to do with it, so I'll quit trying to convince you that there isn't a conspiracy to oppress upper-middle-class white males if you decide to quit going on a mission to insist everyone refer to intersexed people by a term that most of them dislike. Catamorphism 04:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * OK, and I will leave the "intersexed" (hermaphrodites) to take their rightful place by the "differently-abled" (disabled), "special" (retarded), and "legally challenged" (criminals). But don't call me an upper-middle-class white male.  I now choose to call myself a "poverty deprived, pigmentation-challenged, feminity-deprived individual who speaks 'ivorics' ". LOL. StuRat 12:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * By the way, if you're actually interested in understanding the situation of intersexed people rather than parroting stuff you heard on right-wing talk radio, I suggest reading the Intersex Society of North America's FAQ on why "intersex" and "hermaphrodite" are not synonyms. It's short. Catamorphism 22:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't listen to such shows, as I'm not right wing. In fact, I'm rather liberal on many issues: pro-choice, pro-marijuana legalization, pro-prostitution legalization, anti-death penalty (kind of on the fence on that one), pro-national health care, anti-monopoly, pro-government regulation of most industries, pro-gay marriage, pro-direct democracy, etc.  Do I sound right-wing to you ? StuRat 22:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry for making assumptions. Mocking language changes that are meant to make people feel more accepted and comfortable as parts of society is certainly a right-wing cliché, but I suppose I shouldn't assume that anyone who joins in the fun of that is automatically right-wing about other issues. I really recommend you read the FAQ that I linked to; it explains why "hermaphrodite" and "intersex" actually mean different things. It's not just a matter of changing "black" to "African-American" or something analogous, and so I probably shouldn't have gone down that road in the first place. Catamorphism 22:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I read it, and they do list "removing stigma" as a reason, as I suspected. What neither you nor them seem to acknowledge is that, as soon as people actually figure out what "intersexed" means, it will acquire exactly the same stigma.  Then what, rename it yet again hoping for a different result ?  To eliminate the stigma, you need to change human nature, not just the name. StuRat 23:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * "Hermaphrodite" implies two complete sets of genitals, one male and one female. That encourages fetishists (intersex support groups already get plenty of demands for attention from fetishists; what they want doesn't exist), is based on the idea that "true sex" resides in the gonads (scientifically specious; concept predates knowledge of genetics), and tends to imply that there is a "true sex" (which usually contradicts the sex apparent to others, and experienced by the intersexed person). "Intersex" implies an identity, and facilitates the conflation of anatomy with identity, thus confusing doctors even more than it alarms parents (and adults with intersex conditions whose identity is fairly close to typical male or female, that is, most of them). Further, "intersex" doesn't have a clear definition, so doctors who think of "intersex" as so shameful that no one could stand to be identified with the term, tend to modify their own definition of the term from moment to moment, in order to avoid labeling any person or group of people with the term. Thus, although CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) has always been considered the most common cause of intersexuality, doctors have recently been agreeding with CARES Foundation (a support group for CAH parents) that CAH is not an intersex condition. This is an extension of the word game used by medical men in the latter half of the 19th century (I say men because not all people who were thinking and working in medical terms in that period were "doctors", and because they were indeed all men, none of them women; to say "medical people" would seem preciously PC). They were disturbed to find that ambiguous sexual anatomy was rather common; they labeled all such individuals "hermaphrodites", but chose to locate "true sex" in the gonads. Thus, apparent "hermaphrodites" were re-labeled "pseudo-hermaphrodites"; the only "true hermaphrodite" was an individual with microscopically confirmed presence of both ovarian and testicular tissue. In that era, without sterile technique or anesthesia, examination of gonads was not possible in a living individual. Thus the definition itself eliminated the possibility of a living "true hermaphrodite." A new nomenclature based on "DSD" has been elaborated by the international Lawson Wilkins Society for Pediatric Endocrinology/European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology Consensus Group, and will be published in the "Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders" in Pediatrics (June issue, probably). It's better for medical terms to have neutral affect, and to label conditions rather than individuals. Thus, patients with Trisomy 21 are no longer labeled "Mongoloid Idiots." There's a definition of "DSD" at http://www.dsdguidelines.org/htdocs/clinical/dsds_defined.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cherylchase (talk • contribs)

Merge with Hermaphrodite?? (see section above)
We need an expert to determine whether or not "hermaphroditism"/"pseudohermaphroditism" are medically accepted, non-offensive words for "intersexuality".
 * (1) If so, we should merge these articles.
 * (2) If not, we should make the relationship between these more clear by doing this:
 * the article "hermaphroditism" deals only with animals and plants, so it should be moved to two new locations, "hermaphroditism (plants)" and "hermaphroditism (animals)".
 * Then the page "hermaphroditism should be changed into a disambig page with the following options:
 * for the condition known as hermaphroditism/pseudohermaphroditism in humans, see "intersexuality". This usage now considered offensive by some.
 * for hermaphroditism in non-human animals, see "hermaphroditism (animals)"
 * for hermaphroditism in plants, see "hermaphroditism (plants)"

Can we put this proposal up to a vote? JianLi 19:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

 * We don't need an expert for that. The answer is no, and Cherylchase explained why in the above comment. Catamorphism 19:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So then would you agree with the steps outlined above in order to avoid confusion for users who, seeking to learn about human hermaphrodites, are redirect to intersexuality? Also, I have started a discussion at the Science Reference Desk so that this topic may gain more exposure. JianLi 20:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess I don't see the problem. Even before your edits, Hermaphroditism already had this note near the beginning: "Note: The term "hermaphrodite" has historically been used to describe people with ambiguous genitalia or biological sex..." and so on. Catamorphism 20:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I have removed the question from the reference desk; that's not the right place for discussions like this. If posting the question to both talk pages fails to get enough exposure, maybe the village pump would do, but there's no need to assume ahead of time that posting here will not be enough.  Anyway, I agree with Catamorphism, and I don't see why we would need to split hermaphrodite into separate articles for animals and plants.  There is already a prominent disambig line at the top of that page; I don't think readers will have any trouble finding the article they're looking for. --Allen 20:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Intersex/Archive 2


text:
In vivo

Studies that are in vivo (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English ) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and plants, as opposed to a tissue extract or dead organism. This is not to be confused with experiments done in vitro ("within the glass"), i.e., in a laboratory environment using test tubes, Petri dishes, etc. Examples of investigations in vivo include: the pathogenesis of disease by comparing the effects of bacterial infection with the effects of purified bacterial toxins; the development of non-antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and new drugs generally; and new surgical procedures. Consequently, animal testing and clinical trials are major elements of in vivo research. In vivo testing is often employed over in vitro because it is better suited for observing the overall effects of an experiment on a living subject. In drug discovery, for example, verification of efficacy in vivo is crucial, because in vitro assays can sometimes yield misleading results with drug candidate molecules that are irrelevant in vivo (e.g., because such molecules cannot reach their site of in vivo action, for example as a result of rapid catabolism in the liver).

The English microbiologist Professor Harry Smith and his colleagues in the mid-1950s found that sterile filtrates of serum from animals infected with Bacillus anthracis were lethal for other animals, whereas extracts of culture fluid from the same organism grown in vitro were not. This discovery of anthrax toxin through the use of in vivo experiments had a major impact on studies of the pathogenesis of infectious disease.

The maxim in vivo veritas ("in a living thing [there is] truth") is a play on in vino veritas, ("in wine [there is] truth"), a well-known proverb.

In vivo vs. ex vivo research
In microbiology, in vivo is often used to refer to experimentation done in a whole organism, rather than in live isolated cells, for example, cultured cells derived from biopsies. In this situation, the more specific term is ex vivo. Once cells are disrupted and individual parts are tested or analyzed, this is known as in vitro.

Methods of use
According to Christopher Lipinski and Andrew Hopkins, "Whether the aim is to discover drugs or to gain knowledge of biological systems, the nature and properties of a chemical tool cannot be considered independently of the system it is to be tested in. Compounds that bind to isolated recombinant proteins are one thing; chemical tools that can perturb cell function another; and pharmacological agents that can be tolerated by a live organism and perturb its systems are yet another. If it were simple to ascertain the properties required to develop a lead discovered in vitro to one that is active in vivo, drug discovery would be as reliable as drug manufacturing." Studies on In vivo behavior, determined the formulations of set specific drugs and their habits in a Biorelevant (or Biological relevance) medium.

title: In vivo