However, there is a social naivety in much of his arguments. The individual is left too alone, too isolated, too unconnected and too unnourished by spiritual community. Sure, communities can hurt, but they are essential for healthy spiritual development. Such is the nature of the dynamic relationship between self and community.
Development is only possible in such a relationship.
Winn fails to capture that dynamic relationship in this essay. Winn and others seem to be shopping for what cannot be found a romanticized self that is able to live in a simple spiritual purity, unruffled by social constraints. For such persons the unbridled natural self is seen as having a beauty and nobility that the community-constrained self can never achieve. On to the utopia of individuality. I do not think such a utopia exists.