Mind's Eye What is the individual?

Molly made the point in another thread that we conflate individuality
with what is really a world-view. Most of us like to think we have
a good quota of individuality - but then express this as dedicated
followers of fashion. I know as a teacher that trying to set up
lessons that students really take hold of and do their own thing in
relies an having some pretty unusual people in. Most students claim
to want to do their own thing, but the vast majority will do no
constructive work (even against my open standards on what this can be)
if they have to organise it themselves. US society is often claimed
to be the most individualistic in the world - yet look at the
organisation in American Football.

My own view is that our lack of individuality actually arises from the
promulgation of celebrity, either as in mad political cults or via
'International Hollywood'. An example of the first is North Korea
and, of course, we are the prime example of the latter. In our case,
the ready-to-hand of ADMASS means we have almost no real public
dialogue as everything is mediated through the crass world view and
most people have soaked this up as their individuality. Quine made
the point long ago that the notion of evidence is difficult because of
something like this. People think the evidence has come from the
outside, when in fact they only deal with what has impinged and
networked in the world-view they have soaked up.

There's a classic example of this about at the moment. It's debt and
the way we construe the term in the way we think about household debt
as the same as this economic-bankster stuff. Normal dialogue is
impossible because most people can't understand the language because
they have never invested the effort to get beyond an imprinted self.

Much has been written on this, usually under the guise of paradigms -
with the idea that we can learn different ones in external language.
This seems a non-starter for me, as at least 85% of "language" is non-
verbal and huge amounts manipulative. I would contend that
individualism is the curse of our times and exemplified by such
discussions as whether bankers and sports stars are worth their riches
- always discussed in the paradigm of an individual meritocracy that
goes unchallenged. From other perspectives the presence of these
"individuals" is evidence of what they system produces and reason
enough to change it.