We are not in a normal society in terms of history.
“We are often so used to liberal societies – or illiberal ones that use liberalism’s language as a mask – that we miss the radicalism of that vision. As Patricia Crone notes, traditional pre-modern societies, by and large, have little space for the individual:
If society was a body and the functional orders its limbs, individuals were simply cells…like cells, they were programmed for performance of pre-determined roles and derived their value from performing as expected, not from refusing to conform. Individual interests were subordinated to and defined by collective ones…the individual existed for the benefit of the overall group, not the other way around.”
https://acoup.blog/2024/07/05/collections-the-philosophy-of-liberty-on-liberalism/