Gender, Economy, and
The Meaning of Life
Historically and cross-culturally, society isn't really about individuals.
An intellectual concern with individuals begins emerging in the 18th century, as did capitalism, which focuses on the individual as the unit of economy. Thus, individualism is the ideological counterpart of capitalism.
This ideology leads to the prioritizing of individual possessions, wealth, love, and happiness.
If we agree that our values are centered on individual freedom and that love and (the pursuit of) happiness are central to life, then the legitimization of a full range of gender identities and passions is almost inevitable. If, on the other hand, we think our obligations to family, community, and the state come before individual rights and happiness, then they are not.
Next: Worldview
I wrote about the rise of the idea of love and the self a few pages ago. Here I want to comment briefly on the related idea of the individual. Jean Jacques Rousseau is sometimes considered the first individual in the modern sense. His Confessions was published in 1789. Credit for emphasis on the individual as the key economic actor is generally given to Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. Individualism as a national charter occurs that same year in The Declaration of Independence. Some also point to the origins of the idea of the modern individual in the group of philosophers that worked in Jena, in Germany at the turn of the 19th century, particularly Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) who developed what he called the philosophy of Das Ich, the self. Fichte argued that the self was the origin of all meaning and perception. It was only because the self posited itself as an individual that perception and freedom were possible at all. BTW, This also gives us an easy understanding of why rights like gay marriage can be defended by originalist readings of the nation's founding documents. The Declaration gives rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." The Founders prioritized both the rights and the happiness of the individual (except when rights and happiness results in direct damage to others).