I need to be careful with my words here. For one maybe you looked at this headline and are thinking “What the hell Charles? So everyone should be conformists or communists or whatever?” and no, that’s not what I’m saying. I wasn’t sure what word to use here to describe what I’m talking about. The problem with ideologically or politically charged words is that whenever they’re used to critique, people automatically think you agree with their opposition. For example I’m not a big fan of capitalism, but I’m even less of a fan of communism.
Though both can serve largely the same ends. Same the word “individualism” above. I thought of using others, maybe even “Libertarianism” but that’s too politically focused and means a different thing to just about every person. What I’m getting at here is the idea that everyone can just live their own way and that good things can come from that. On the surface it seems like a very reasonable idea. Let everyone do the things they want and so long as it doesn’t hurt others, who cares?
And in many ways I support this ideology and believe in it, to an extent. The problem comes when you take it too literally and apply it to things that it shouldn’t be applies to. And expand it beyond where it was meant to be expanded. Another problem is there a romantic notion to individualism to be a “lone ranger” type, one of the mythical archetypes of American cinema and literature. The “rugged individual”, again while I’m all for being as strong as one can be, one runs into problems when taking this too literally.
The Truth About Individualism
No man is an island, you’ve heard the saying before. We all interconnected for better or far more often for worse. Let’s say that a man flees to some part of the woods that isn’t owned anymore, this place doesn’t exist but let’s say it does. Now let’s say with his own hardwork he lives there. He clears some land, builds himself a home, makes his own clothes, hunts and plants his own food, and is a self-surviving man. Is his an individual? Is he by himself and his actions don’t affect others and the actions of others don’t affect him?
Yes and no. Now let’s say this was 500 years ago. When the world was as interconnected as it is now and somehow we got this man here. In his lifetime he could actually achieve what we’d call an independent life. He’d likely go partway mad from the isolation and certainly wouldn’t live the best life possible, but he could live what we’d call an independent life…most likely. Where his actions didn’t affect others and the actions of others don’t affect him. If he lived and died there. However if there were people close than this changes. If another tribe wanted that land they could take it, if fleeing outlaws wanted it they could take it.
Point being it’d be hard to truly live an independent life back then. But let’s talk about now. Now it’d be impossible. That land has money and therefore someone’s going to want to own it. He’ll have to pay taxes to a government to live there, he’ll have to deal with permits and others. He’ll have to deal with the land owner which is always the government. And meanwhile the world will still be taking shape around him. War may break out, pestilence, disease, a giant corporation might want his land for resources, the government for a highway, and so on and so forth. Meaning there’s no escape from other people anymore, if there ever truly was.
The Fact About The Social World
Now you may say “Okay but that’s not my definition of individualism.” and I understand. My point above was that we’ve always been part of the social order even when we think we’re not. But it goes deeper than that. As part of the social order our actions affect the lives of others. That’s why we have laws and perhaps even more importantly social mores. What one person does affects another. One a king in England does could affect a mountain in Tennessee at one time. Now what a policy maker in Washington D.C. does could affect a goat herder in Eastern Europe, and so on and so forth.
Look at America, it’s exported its way of life and its degeneracy to the entire world. Though commerce, though war, and though media. A “rugged individual” living his entire life in the plains of Oklahoma could have his entire world upended and changed from a screenwriter living in L.A., again we’re all interconnected. Which isn’t a bad thing, though it can be. You can’t escape humanity, try as you might. We’re all part of this, for better or far more often for worse. That may suck but it’s a fact of life. You can’t escape the wages of humanity, except in death, and even then who knows.
Which brings me to my next point. What you say, think, believe, and above all else do affects others around you and same with them. You can’t just say let everyone do what they want in their little circle as long as it don’t affect me in mine. All the circles are connected and they all affect one another. There is no separation. Now that doesn’t mean I believe in policing all the circles or making everyone conform to one way, not at all. However to say just that person can do that over there and I’ll do this over here and we’ll both be good, is complete nonsense.
Why Things Matter
I used to think that I could just live my own life and that’d be that. I didn’t have to worry about the nonsense of the world. Things like morals, ideologies, and culture didn’t matter. But that was a naive way of thinking, even if it would be better that way, its not that way. And that’s what matters. What I say, think, and do has meaning, it affects others. Likewise what those that I am completely against say, think, or do also has meaning and affects others. We all represent a way of living, of life, and a certain soul. One that will war and contest with others.
Life is competition. We’re not all individuals on our own separate ice floes floating around in a big sea. We’re a bunch of molecules in a confined space, bouncing off of an affecting one another every moment of every day. This gets multiplied ten fold if you have a family. You have to engage with the world around you, it’ll come for you one way or the other. Just by existing you have a stake in things, in the way that the world works and will work. No one is completely an individual. Thoughts, beliefs, and actions all matter. Yours and others. Trying to escape this is futile, embrace it and make the most out of it.
In a sort of almost sick and perverse way, we are, in fact, all in this together. And that should horrify you. We can’t afford to not engage and stand back and watch things happen. We have to engage with the social world around us, there’s not much of a choice.
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-Charles Sledge
