Final answer:
The shift from pre-enlightenment Community to post-enlightenment Individualism reflects a transformation from collective traditional values to an emphasis on individual rights, reason, and skepticism of traditional authority, spurred by the Enlightenment era. Thinkers like John Locke promoted social contract theory, focusing on individual freedoms.
Step-by-step explanation:
The difference between Community pre-enlightenment and Individualism post-enlightenment revolves around the shift in focus from collective societal values to the rights and roles of individual citizens. During the pre-enlightenment period, communities were bound together by traditions, religious beliefs, and rigid social structures. In contrast, the post-enlightenment era, influenced by the Enlightenment, celebrated the individual and their capacity to reason, leading to political, social, and economic transformations. Thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau contributed to this shift by proposing social contract theory, which emphasized the protection of individual freedoms.
In essence, the Enlightenment encouraged a view where civilization was seen as superior to savagery, leading to novel socio-economic models like the market economy, and changed the way individuals related to each other and to institutions. This transition marked the rise of individualism, with a stronger focus on personal choice, freedom, and the pursuit of knowledge through skepticism of traditional authorities, including the church and monarchy.