Personalism

Now you mentioned personalism, which I gather is in effect a philosophical school.

Could you elaborate on that?

Personalism is...

I used to think in terms of individualism, but individualism tends to...

It's got a kind of narrower meaning and more Ayn Rand type.

But she emphasized personalism.

Sometimes now she's seen as a feminist.

Personalism should be above any other description.

But plenty of other ideologies are far too collectivistic, too communitarian, don't recognize individual dignity.

Personalism kind of held the promise of a middle way between excessive individualism and excessive collectivism, which in the 20th century mostly meant various forms of communism or socialism.

And one of its core terms, a very Catholic term in certain ways, was dignity.

Partly to be blunt about it, partly because some of that philosophy was fairly wishy-washy.