Throughout this book I have argued that the conflicting needs of self and other and of individual and society are the stuff of which moral conflict is made. The function of morality, in this view, is to provide an ideal resolution of conflicting demands, both at the psychological and sociocultural level. One would expect that historical change would bring with it an alteration of this delicate balance. A plethora of ideas and evidence from a number of sources suggests that the culture ideal of human societies has been, and is in the process of undergoing a fundamental revolution in the relative valuation of individual and group. To demonstrate this movement, and accompanying changes in cultural forms, is the central aim of this chapter.

In an essay on the psychological implications of collectivism, D.F.Y. Hodefines “collectivism” in a fairly standard fashion:

This definition sounds remarkably like a societal analog to the popular conception of the term “narcissism”; collectivism, so defined, appears similar to a “group narcissism.” As Part I showed, however, narcissism is not a simple phenomenon that remains stable through time; it passes through a series of developmental transformations. This chapter will attempt to show that something similar is true of collectivism. A brief comparative analysis of the thought of Durkheim and Marx is instructive here.