Individuality is produced by entering culture, not given at birth

Evidence

It is no different for mental differentiation, especially since this usually originates in the meeting of latent mental abilities with objectively preexisting mental products. The unmediated interaction of subjectivities or the purely inner energy of a human being rarely elicits all the mental distinctiveness that one possesses; rather, this seems to be associated with the extent of what has been called “objective mind,” that is, the traditions and the experiences of one’s group, set down in thousands of forms; the art and learning that are present in tangible structures; all the cultural materials that the historical group possesses as something super-subjective and yet available to everyone. The peculiarity of this generally accessible Mind that crystallizes itself in objective structures is that it provides both the material and the impetus for the development of a distinct personal mental type. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 654 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

For culture exists only if man draws into his development something that is external to him. Cultivation is certainly a state of the soul, but one that is reached only by means of the use of purposely created objects. This externality and objectivity is not to be understood only in a spatial sense. The forms of comportment, the refinement of taste expressed in judgments, the education of moral tact which make an individual a delightful member of society—they are all cultural formations in which the perfection of the individual is routed through real and ideal spheres outside of the self. The perfection does not remain a purely immanent process, but is consummated in a unique adjustment and teleological interweaving of subject and object. … Thus we comprehend why very inner-oriented persons, who shun every detour of the soul into the surrounding world in the course of seeking their own perfection, can feel hatred for culture. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 555 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The popular model treats cultural identity as fixed by birth and impermeable to migration; Cultural identity is a forward-directed production, not a recovery of origins; Individual mental distinctiveness emerges only from contact with objective culture. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 654 (+7 more)

Related

• Individual mental distinctiveness emerges only from contact with objective culture. (similarity 0.86)
• Social and cultural structures overdetermine our natural human constitution. (similarity 0.82)
• Human brains develop differently across cultural contexts, unlike chemical laws. (similarity 0.81)
• Human culture originates in the socially mediated relation between man and nature (similarity 0.81)
• Simmel saw cultural evolution producing diverse incommensurable worlds, not unified humanity (similarity 0.80)
• Culture requires routing one’s perfection through external objects and spheres (similarity 0.79)
• Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them (similarity 0.78)
• Subjective and objective culture necessarily oppose each other (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Individual mental distinctiveness emerges only from contact with objective culture. #corroborates (0.95) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 654
• Culture requires routing one’s perfection through external objects and spheres #expands (0.90) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 555
• Individual identity is stabilized only within collective cultural networks #corroborates (0.85)
• The collective unconscious is culturally imposed, not biologically inherited #corroborates (0.80) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 668
• Structuralism decentered individual agency that culturalism treated as authentic #expands (0.72)