It's no coincidence because Plato lived in a republic where individual freedom could be taken for granted. Contrasting this with Plato's The Republic, we see that his discussion on the good life and justice describes a whole community. Christianity, for eg, arose amid the tyranny of the Roman Empire, where the helpless masses adopted the view that the individual may be perfect in an imperfect world. Traditionally, the religious life was a duologue between the soul and God - which was possible for an individual regardless of the state of the community. One of the defects of religion, Russell says, is individualism.

Now everything aside, the part that reeled me in the most was Russell's discussion on Salvation. Philosophy of Value is one place where humans are greater than nature, like Russell says, 'in this realm we're kings, and we debase our kingship if we bow down to nature.' This got me thinking: how valuation is deeply violent in itself, because it's deeply human when we assign the value of God to Nature, for example, and bow down to it, it gives away our deepest desire for utter annihilation, kill individuality, and go berzerk! No wonder then, a species so possessed by death and destruction would need morality to have a metaphysical backbone. Aided by science and good education, these desires can be mitigated and refined, and the quality of life improved. Desires are good or bad only in how they affect us and the people around us theoretical ethics is superfluous. Russell believes that the current morality is a curious blend of utilitarianism and superstition, but the superstitious part had the stronger hold, as is natural, since superstition is the origin of moral rules. Grappling with the concepts of morality, religion, good life, moral rules and happiness, he makes his disdain for the categorising tendencies of moral philosophy abundantly clear the influence of Freud is also very visible.

There's something beautiful about the way Russell holds onto the glorious 'individual' while condemning the noxious careerist individualism engendered by an all pervading bourgeois consciousness.

What i believe by bertrand russell