The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Socialism’s primary recommendation, for Wilde, is its potential to facilitate individualism. By “individualism,” Wilde does not exactly mean independence; although Wilde argues that compulsory social and societal responsibilities inhibit individualism, he also notes that humans are “naturally social.” Nor does Wilde see individualism as a euphemism for selfishness, arguing that people would be much less selfish in a truly individualist society. Rather, Wilde defines individualism as the realization of who one is as a unique human being, independent of any external pressures, and he argues that a society composed of such individualists would be much healthier and happier than 19th-century England.

Wilde does not deny that some people—primarily artists—approach such individualism even in capitalist societies. Suffering itself can refine the individual in the way Wilde imagines. Of Russia, a place of such rampant inequality that it had only abolished serfdom in the mid-19th century, Wilde writes: “No one who lived in modern Russia could possibly realise his perfection except by pain” (88). Moreover, suffering can prompt rebellion, which itself tends to develop the self—hence Wilde’s preference for the “ungrateful” and “disobedient” poor. However, there is a problem with cultivating individualism through these avenues that for Wilde eclipses even the obvious objections (e.g., that people should not have to suffer unnecessarily). Suffering and rebellion as modes of individualism presuppose an unjust society; they are merely “reference to wrong, unhealthy, unjust surroundings” (89), and such surroundings do not uniformly result in individualism. On the contrary, Wilde argues that they much more commonly produce conformity and even degradation, and Wilde wants individualism to be accessible to all.

Wilde sees joy as the surer path to self-development. Much of the essay focuses on the importance of the internal, determined by what someone enjoys, and how damaging it is to that internal world to bow to external pressure. Wilde points out that a man “may commit a sin against society, and yet realise through that sin his true perfection” (27). What matters is that the impulse comes from the self: Even an act society might deem wrong can be “perfect” if it reflects an internal consistency. Indeed, Wilde suggests that any friction between one individual’s pursuit of happiness and fulfillment and another’s stems not from the individuals themselves but from the nature of society. A society in which everyone is free to pursue individualism would benefit the people within it. If everyone were true to themselves, they would not only increase the net happiness of the world by producing beautiful things, but also by taking honest pleasure in the joys of others, however different from their own. Coupled with the material safety of socialism, such individualism, far from producing conflict, would actually guarantee social harmony.