SOURCE: James, Max H. “The Polarity of Individualism and Conformity, a Dynamic of the Dream of Freedom, Examined in Looking Backward.” Christianity & Literature: An Interdisciplinary Journal 35, no. 1 (fall 1985): 17-59.

In the following essay, James analyzes the polarity of individualism versus conformity. He compares Looking Backward to other utopian novels, gives an overview of the philosophies of progress and individualism over the centuries, illustrates this polarity in Looking Backward in comparison to Karl Marx's ideas, and asserts that there must be a balance of this polarity to prevent a “short-circuiting of the dynamic of freedom.”

The tension between the individual man and the mass of men making up his social environment probably has been felt as long as men have practiced self-reflection. The tension operates in both directions, attraction and repulsion. Born a product of social experience, the human being, as we know him, undergoes an early form of...