Individualism is Toxic For Millennials (And Everyone)
You are not an individual. When I force my “message” down into a sentence, that’s what it is. I used to be an “individualist”. Which meant that I was annoyed by the pressures and generalizations assumed on me as a “collective”. I hated being clumped. It never felt right to be categorized by my race or my gender. Being clumped by my age is something I allowed because I guess that is the dimension I do feel closest to you in. We have been subjected to the same blast of technology and through that, I really can relate.
But my life and my family is so untraditional that it was never right for me to clump. Individualism gave me intellectual space to exist with you all with no strings attached. At least in my mind. Ayn Rand said “The smallest minority is the individual” and it made perfect sense.
But my beef with modern technology turns out to be deeply rooted in the fact that individualist perspective is what we build our software out of. We assume that our connection to each other is optional, a matter of choice.
A couple years ago, after a talk I gave about social media, a gentleman told me he would avoid dating the superficial archetype of influencer who is engrossed in her phone. He said he can just choose to ignore her. “She has nothing to do with me.”
She has everything to do with him.
Just because we remove our presence from someone doesn’t mean they’ve been removed from our sphere of influence. The truth is, even if this gentlemen never spoke to a superficial LA social media star a day in his life, her presence will still influence his everyday life.
Her presence influences what kinds of jobs are available. It influences how he will be sized up in the dating market. It will influence the clothes on the rack at his local H&M. It will influence his stock portfolio. It will influence the music and the TV shows he watches. It will influence his little sisters and brothers. It will influence how his mother and his elders are perceived and valued at their jobs. RIP Donda. It will influence how his value is perceived.
And I don’t want to just pick on the LA, social media chick. We all echo our psyche. But the point is we echo in a web, not in an isolated chamber. When one person moves on this web, the whole web moves. You don’t get to choose and declare this web “doesn’t affect me”. You only get to bask in that illusion. But not for long. Sooner or later you’ll feel it crawl up your leg and won’t know what to do about it. Your culture has gotten out of hand because your culture doesn’t know it’s a part of a whole body.
I want to say “humans need other humans” but you know this. We know we are a “social species”. We know it intellectually. But philosophically and technologically we don’t live like it. We keep trying to squeeze together using separatists technology. We keep trying to create community with a bunch of little shitty profiles. I keep watching silicon valley smash glass together thinking eventually it’ll create a beautiful sculpture when in actuality there are shards and blood all over the floor. The desperate attempts to make us feel closer through individualist technology only makes us feel more fragmented.
People don’t just merely “need” other people. People literally come out of other people. We are related. It appears as if we are separate but there are plenty of emotions, dependences and straight up DNA that proves a human is not really just one person. A homo sapien might be one person but a human is really more like 3-50 people. I mean, it takes two people for you to even get here and at least one of them to keep you alive. Then you need more of them to teach you the basics. You also need an economy of them so you can be able to trade goods/services to have the basics. You’ll want a few to spend spare time with. I mean since you’re here you might as well go fishing or have lunch with a select few you like. Sooner or later you’ll probably get an urge to get one to make a family with and boop— look at that, suddenly you’re making your own. And you’re entirely, one way or the other, interdependent on all of them.
If you were really an “individual” then when a loved one died you’d feel nothing. But when a loved one does die, part of you dies. Without your loved ones, what are you? Nothing. Are you still human or are you a shell of a human? You’d be human with missing parts. The missing parts would be other people you have a connection with. Trying to feel alive as an individual is not going to cut it. Even if you are physically alone you will still need a butterfly or a book to make this whole shebang feel worth it.
What saddens me is the human species has built-in for you a lot of rich experiences and resources with others but we’ve abandoned them. Typically the access to the wisdom of your elders is part of the program. You usually got that along with the sheer joy of watching youth live out their innocence in full bloom. These are communal, cultural phenomena that energized you. Sure, all life has its ups and downs but at least you didn’t feel like it was just little old you free falling into a dark pit. The economy wasn’t as complicated and abstract. The fruits were red because they were genetically ripe not genetically raped. The point is, man’s search for meaning is way shorter when he understands he is the son, the father and the grandpa.
It’s easier to feel human when one step feels like it is taken by three feet, not one foot. The extra weight grounds your sway. They indicate your movement moves everyone. This species is not meant for you to take a wobbly step into the unknown darkness of life alone. The presence of your elders and juniors in your step were there keep you focused, inspired, confident. Sure, this weight can feel like a burden sometimes. Some men have daydreamed what it would be like to cut these extra feet off and go run free. To hell with grandpa and the baby. What about me?
Well, what about you? To have some individual time is one thing but to have an individualistic culture is not human nature. If you think carrying three feet is a burden try feeling the weight of the world by yourself. You’ll quickly realize those extra feet weren’t dragging you at all. They were distributing the weight of the cosmic load.
The human is not an individual.
The individual is not human.
The human is a clump of people who make the cosmic load worth carrying.
What we are today is a clump of “individuals” who don’t realize or understand that we are moving each other. The body of humanity has forgotten its feet are connected. They are going opposite directions and that’s why you feel torn apart.