The individual is the vehicle for all imagination, innovation, inspiration. Throughout the Bible, it is documented through thousands of years of history, that God spoke through the individual, never through a group or organization. In Science and Health we find the astounding declaration: "The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man."
Why then the hostility towards individualism by "the group," by political, religious, and other organizations? When this occurs, the justification is that the individual is the source of all evil, threatening the greater good. Ah, and so it is, as in all things true, a suppositional opposite, a lie. So often, this lie, this source of evil manipulates the organization to snuff out the imagination, innovation, inspiration which threaten its reign.
Individualism and freedom go hand in hand. The protection of freedom is not through suppressing individualism (akin to throwing out the baby with the bath water!) but in following the wisdom: "In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to consider whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing one." (S&H)