Is there a dominant common culture in the West?

Is there a basic way of thinking about life that is so pervasive, that it is assumed and impacts and affects all of our other ways of thinking?

I certainly think you could make an argument for ‘individualism’ being somewhere near the core of the way most Americans at least think about life.

What is individualism?

Here’s a definition written many years ago that I only read this morning,

“Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw to a circle of family and friends; with his little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself.” (Alexis de Tocqueville)

Now, given that definition, we have to ask several questions:

1.) Does that describe the way we think?
2.) What does the Scripture say about this way of thinking? What is right about it? What is wrong?
3.) What is a more biblical way of looking at life? How does the Scripture nuance this way of thinking or outright reject it?
4.) How might this way of viewing the world impact the way we make decisions in other areas of our lives?
5.) How can we actively seek to put off this way thinking and put on a more biblical way of looking at the world?