What is exactly is an individual?

According to the dictionary, an individual is unique and therefore should be able to be set apart from others without much difficulty. The question at hand now is, does civilization remove the identifying aspects of unique individuals and mesh them into one similar entity? Throughout the literary works of Bill Buford and Sigmund Freud, as well as the film directed by Peter Weir, this question is met and answered. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud places particular stress on the fact that the individual cannot find pure happiness when placed in a civilization because it demands different things than that of the individual. Like Freud, director Peter Weir in…(short extract)