Question: who believes that the state exists for the individual and not individual for the state

title: Individualism
text: The Russian - American poet Joseph Brodsky once manifested that `` The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism , originality of thinking , whimsicality , even -- if you will -- eccentricity . That is , something that ca n't be feigned , faked , imitated ; something even a seasoned imposter could n't be happy with . '' Ralph Waldo Emerson famously declared `` , `` Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist '' -- a point of view developed at length in both the life and work of ( Henry David ) Thoreau . Equally memorable and influential on Walt Whitman is Emerson 's idea that `` a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds , adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines . '' ... Emerson opposes on principle the reliance on social structures ( civil , religious ) precisely because through them the individual approaches the divine second hand , mediated by the once original experience of a genius from another age : `` An institution , '' as he explains , `` is the lengthened shadow of one man . '' To achieve this original relation one must `` Insist on one 's self ; never imitate '' for if the relationship is secondary the connection is lost . ''