If the notion of the self is a product of human confidence and security, of free time and free choice, then it is nothing less than a product of civilization. Individualism is a reward, like the printed word and manicures, for millennia well-spent. By this logic, those who draw their sense of identity from within--from the self, as loners do --rather than from a group and it's folkways, are basking in the glory of advanced civilization.

— Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto by Anneli S. Rufus (Page 4)