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Dispense with Individualism:
A story of triangularity transformed
April 2025
by Matthew Adair
The city is an impeccable example of the Aristotelian proverb: “The whole is not the same as the sum of its parts.”
Built of countless components, from the literal elements of concrete to the metaphorical elements of human life, cities exert gravitational energy that exceeds the impossible calculus of the contents within their physical boundaries.
Within this sort of container, there are innumerable “parts” that constitute the “whole” of urbanity.
Yet, the paramount “part” of the city is humanity: you, me, and everyone else on the metro or shuffling along the sidewalk. And although the city has a reputation for anonymizing us (sometimes a desired effect), we are still part of a community that benefits from being around others — a key component of urban life.
In this statement, we understand it to be true that cities exist because most people find benefits to physical proximity to other people. To be sure, our individuality is retained, but something else is gained through interactions with others which allow the social and cultural networks that give meaning to our lives to emerge. As the proverb says, the city is more than just you and me separately; it is you and me together. The urban thinker and prolific writer Lewis Mumford shared a parable of his own to get this point across in his autobiography. In the “parable of the triangles,” Mumford described each of us as a triangle with only three sides (of course), clarifying that we could only ever have three sides, without exception. Suppose one triangle feels lonely, stifled, or forlorn with just three measly sides. The addition or subtraction of sides is impossible. Alas, there’s another opportunity; one based in community, solidarity, and love. Two triangles, working in collaboration, may layer themselves to create a six-sided star. Huzzah! A new shape emerges. Mumford pronounces this to be “a quite remarkable star, with six points, and with an internal figure in a central position, holding the parts together: a hexagon” (Mumford, 1979, pp. 191-192).
Not only does the collaboration of two individual triangles create both a star and a hexagon, both unique within themselves, but also even smaller details to appreciate. Six new little triangles also join the fold — yet more nuance to discover. Throughout this experience of voluntary cooperation, Mumford reminds us that “the lines and angles of the original triangles remain unchanged: yet in the combination they show new properties, unknown in a purely triangular world” (Mumford, 1979, pp. 191-192). Without compromising any of the triangle’s triangularity, it constitutes part of something bigger than just its own three-sided reality. Collaborating, cooperating, and connecting with others created entirely new entities, helping to dissuade our original triangular protagonist from feeling lonely, stifled, or forlorn. From this deliberate layering emerges a stronger force; a leveraging of shared triangularity. Or, in our case, shared humanity.
The power of collective energy to transform and invigorate, to bring new life and ideas into being, is illustrated by this endearing parable. For Mumford, the story “sums up the nature of emergent change, using existing components to make a radically different pattern” (Mumford, 1979, pp. 191-192). While this tale of triangularity most directly evokes the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, there’s another scale at which this parable can be interpreted: the everlasting contrast between individualism and collectivism. As populism has experienced a resurgence in select nations throughout the world, it is clear that the enduring idea of individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps without the assistance of a so-called nanny state attracts plenty of adherents. This portrayal of fierce independence, however, is a rather new concept throughout human history—one generally linked to the rise of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century. Prior to this era in the Western world, the collective, the community, and the bonds of both kinship and guilds allowed individuals to wield more power and influence as they sought stability in an often cruel reality.
In the late eighteenth century United States, the individual versus collective debate was as pertinent as it remains today — except the dominant narrative was flipped. Before the myth of the self-made man took over the American zeitgeist in the Jacksonian Era, untethered individuals who disrespected the authority of church or state were thought to be self-aggrandizing. Under the reserved nature of Protestantism, individuals were expected to sacrifice their own selfish whims for the benefit of the community. The legacy of this debate is traced in the recent book, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson. Historian Alex Zakaras writes that “the ubiquitous Protestant drama of the sinful self” highlighted “a central struggle between the corrupt or anarchic individual and a harmonious social order overseen by both church and state” (Zakaras, 2022, p. 7). An ever-present plot device in plays, books, and sermons in the Revolutionary Era of the incipient nation.
From this fleeting glimpse into the past emerges the truth that American values, and political ideologies overall, are constantly shifting to meet the demands either of their constituents or of their most outspoken advocates. If we consider a city as a place full of separate triangles, this dual-natured debate of individual and collective can be clearly visualized. What kind of city would we prefer? One in which all triangles rigidly retain their three-sided independence, not bordering, overlapping, or interacting with any other triangles? Or one in which those triangles are free to associate, affiliate, and cooperate with any other willing triangles to create dazzling shapes, constructs, and depth that is necessarily impossible under the first scenario of rugged individualism?
When we dispense with individualism, we allow ourselves to layer with other individuals in order to create community. De-prioritizing individualism, that harsh mythology of insufferable self-sufficiency, permits the greater forces of solidarity, camaraderie, and unity to emerge.
Layer your own triangles
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References
Mumford, L., 1895-1990. (1979). My Works and Days: A personal chronicle (1st ed). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; WorldCat. to Planning Applications, MIT Press.
Zakaras, A. (2022). The Roots of American Individualism: Political myth in the age of Jackson. Princeton University Press.