Individualism

Various versions of individualism are perspectives and ideologies which focuses on individuals rather than on social groups or on society as a whole. Three simple versions of individualism are:

A.) Moral individualism - An idea about how people SHOULD be treated in society: "We should all be treated as the persons we are, rather than be subjected to prejudice and stereotypes.

B.) Inspirational Individualism - An idea about how persons can be, in spite of social pressure: "We can still try our best to be ourselves, instead of submitting blindly to social expectations."

C.) Fake Individualism - An idea about how people a priori ARE treated in society: "Everyone is already treated as an individual, so prejudice and discrimination does not exist and can't be a relevant problem anywhere in our civilization".

While moral indiviualism and inspirational individualism both can be used in their own ways to fight against categorism, fake universalism is a tool for upholding and invisibilizing categorism.

Note that when a person invokes individualism, the underlying discourse doesn't have to be any of the three versions. But it can be one of them, or a mix of two or of all three.