We might extend Orwell’s (and Sennett’s) analysis even further and apply it specifically to the Johari Window. The emergence of “personality” during the 18th Century in Europe (and in most other societies in our world with the Westernization of these societies) leads to an increasingly rigidified Quad One. “Persona” truly becomes a mask. We search for authenticity in other people and become obsessed with “reality” TV, People magazine and the tabloids.
We hope to break through the façade when, in fact, it has been reinforced. Each of us, in some manner, must face the dilemma of sacrificing our own privacy for public (or at least interpersonal) acclaim and of sacrificing our own freedom for a moment of leadership. At the heart of the matter is the fundamental paradox associated with an individualistic frame of reference: we are profoundly alone and independent (internal locus of control) while also being dependent on other people for a sense of who we are and what we mean in and for the world in which we live (external locus of control).
The Protestant Ethic
We can trace individualism back even further in Western European history, relying on the exceptional analysis offered by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[ii] Weber proposed that the Protestant Reformation in Europe provided the individualism that is dominant today. One of these reformers, Martin Luther, fought against the dominant theological perspective of the Catholic Church that God is only known and mediated through the institution of the church. Luther preached, instead, that an individual worshipper can know God directly and did not need a priest or other representatives of the church to determine what God wants or what the scriptures teaches.
This led to the formulation of a radical theology based on the assumption that people of faith can establish a personal relationship with God. As I will note later in this series of essays (in describing Quad Four dynamics), this personal relationship not only creates a context for profound individualism, it also sets the stage for humankind’s direct grappling with the mysterious forces (the numinous) that are usually mediated in institutional religions (such as the Catholic Church) through priests, rituals, and other collective activities of the church. Martin Luther provided Christians with the opportunity (and awesome challenge) to engage their God individually and face-to-face. This individual relationship between worshipper and God soon translated into individualism in many other domains of European society.
