a reminder for those who are willingly ignoring the Palestinian genocide because they are slave to their own comfort.

Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Increased awareness of the importance of mental health is no bad thing, especially in the aftermath of a punishing pandemic. But in many cases, the prevalence of what The New Yorker’s Katy Waldman has termed “Instagram therapy” has exacerbated a broader cultural trend toward solipsism, masquerading as “self-care.” The idea of self-care, in turn, has been largely divorced from its links to activism and is now often used to frame individual pleasurable actions, like taking a bubble bath or canceling plans, as morally worthy, even necessary. The exhortation to take care of ourselves, to protect our mental well-being at any cost, has become a mantra for a newly dominant ideology.

It’s not just that this Instagram therapy gives its adherents a convenient excuse to bail on dinner parties or silence our phones when friends text us in tears. Rather, it’s that according to this newly prevalent gospel of self-actualization, the pursuit of private happiness has increasingly become culturally celebrated as the ultimate goal. The “authentic” self — to use another common buzzword — is characterized by personal desires and individual longings. Conversely, obligations, including obligations to imperfect and often downright difficult people, are often framed as mere unpleasant circumstance, inimical to the solitary pursuit of our best life. Feelings have become the authoritative guide to what we ought to do, at the expense of our sense of communal obligations.

[...]

Yet it is precisely that rejection of our communal lives that makes therapy culture — at least the version of it on social media and in wellness advertisements — such an imperfect substitute. The idea that we are “authentic” only insofar as we cut ourselves off from one another, that the truest or most fundamental parts of our humanity can be found in our desires and not our obligations, risks cutting us off from one of the most important truths about being human: We are social animals. And while the call to cut off the “toxic” or to pursue the mantra of “live your best life,” or “you are enough” may well serve some of us in individual cases, the normalization of narratives of personal liberation threaten to further weaken our already frayed social bonds. “We are a relational species,” Dr. Cohen noted, adding that we need connection “to really thrive and survive.”

Shawty not a sheep, that’s hot

Behind the glorification of “work” and the tireless talk of the “blessings of work” I find the same thought as behind the praise of impersonal activity for the public benefit: the fear of everything individual. At bottom, one now feels when confronted with work -and what is invariably meant is relentless industry from early till late- that such work is the best policy, that it keeps everybody in harness and powerfully obstructs the development of reason, of covetousness, of the desire for independence. For it uses up a tremendous amount of nervous energy and takes it away from reflection, brooding, dreaming, worry, love and hatred; it always sets a small goal before one’s eyes and permits easy and regular satisfactions. In that way a society in which the members continually work hard will have more security: and security is now adored as the supreme goddess. And now- horrors!- it is precisely the “worker” who has become dangerous. “Dangerous individuals are swarming all around”. And behind them, the danger of dangers: the individual.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn

Our cherished individualism is also our miserable isolation. -- Michael Lipsey

Toxic Individualism In Modern Witchcraft

The modern witchcraft movement is very much a product of the 20th century, and one thing it picked up from that was a pretty individualist way of thinking. This isn't all bad, since it helped normalize people being allowed to do spirituality in a way that truly resonated with them, rather than following whatever an institution prescribed for them.

But as many of us know, western individualism comes with a lot of really toxic shit, encouraging and even enshrining apathy, cruelty, and social Darwinism. This, unfortunately, is very much an attitude you occasionally see within modern witchcraft.

This is sometimes expressed through a "let 'em sink or swim" attitude. For example, you might see people bristle at the idea of warning people about dangers such as toxic plants; "well, they should know to just research this themselves, if they get hurt, that's their own faults." Never mind that most of us live in a socioeconomic environment where "natural" tends to be equated with "safe," and few people were taught any real amount of research skills. (Most people don't know how to research beyond "type a thing into Google and click the first link" or "watch a video on YouTube and follow the algorithm.")

There's this sort of idea that witchcraft and the occult is this kind of Darwinian proving ground. You're either just born having what it takes, or you're not. Supposedly, there's no need to warn people about red flags, fascist rhetoric, pseudohistory, or anything, because supposedly, the "worthy" will just be able to find their own way on their own. Anyone who doesn't make it? Anyone who ends up poisoning themselves or falling down the alt right pipeline or abused by a predator? Couldn't be helped; they were never "meant" for this path anyway. It was simply too much for them. Why, if you really think about it, it was their own faults for daring to reach above the station they were born for, anyway.

This is a completely irrational view, because it's simply not how things work. People aren't born having research skills, critical thinking skills, or knowing the difference between real history and pseudohistory; they're taught these things. And some people are statistically much less likely to receive a good education than others. There are a few people who beat the odds and end up better educated than most people in their socioeconomic status, but this doesn't mean that they were born with inherent greatness; it just means that they were curious and lucked out in finding the right materials.

As many of us also know, Victorian-era eugenicists believed that members of the upper class were just inherently better. They had the genes for intelligence and strength of will. (Yeah, that whole modern occult fixation with willpower has some dodgy origins, too.) They just ignored that whole thing where they lived in a socioeconomic system designed to keep most people in poverty. If they ever saw someone beat the system, they attributed it to that person being born exceptional for some reason. I would highly recommend that anyone who hasn't done so already watch Shaun's video, The Bell Curve, which criticizes the book by the same title that effectively tries to argue for Victorian-age eugenics, to get a better picture of this whole thing.

Toxic individualism also encourages thinking of individuals as main characters on some kind of hero's journey, where every pain they suffer and every mistake they make is a vitally important part of their journey and growth; so much so that any effort to prevent them from making mistakes or suffering harm is hindering their personal growth.

Sure, people do often gain valuable insight from their mistakes and suffering. But it's absurd to claim that this is always the best way for people to learn and grow, especially if there's a risk of serious harm for themselves or others. Certainly it's much better to learn from a friendly Tumblr post that essential oils can give you chemical burns or harm your pets than experience it first-hand. And it's much better to learn what far right rhetoric looks like beforehand so you can recognize it when you first see it, rather than get drawn into some far right belief system and perpetuate harm on vulnerable minorities for any amount of time. (This whole thing of acting like you're life's main character and other people are basically just NPCs on some hero's journey that you imagine yourself to be on is so immensely fucked up.)

And finally, if anybody out here finds themselves thinking, "but nobody should expect help from others; after all, I didn't get any!", I'm gonna tell you: it shouldn't have been that way. You didn't not get help because that's just how the world works; you didn't get help because that's how modern western socioeconomics are created to work. Toxic individualism is a construct, and it's one that we can dismantle and replace with something better.

Understanding Individualism vs Collectivism

Making that post about individualism and capitalism yesterday, I got some questions, that showed me the same problem as the person I was talking about had: A lot of people do actually not know what individualism and collectivism mean. So, let me try to explain.

I had kinda hoped that Abigail from Philosophy Tube might have made a video on this, but no such luck. So, I guess I have to try and explain it, even though I mostly know it from sociology, rather from the philosophic origins where it comes from.

Basically, both concepts originate with socialist philosophy in the early 19th century, which correctly identified the early capitalist society as individualist and saw the dangers coming with it. It argued that an individualist society will be harmful on a societal level, because the society at large would always focus on the self, rather than the other. Capitalist philosophy however picked this up was like: “Yeah, awesome, right?” And especially in the 20th century they really started to run with it, realizing that they could use it to make people into better consumers.

Now, individualism does not mean “a sense of self”. This is not connected to it. You will still have a sense of self in a collectivist society and nobody says that you shouldn’t have. Rather it means that the focus of everyone should be on the individual. Both themselves – but also the individual actors in society. It is as such not a surprise that the idea of “Great Man Theory” came up and started to thrive during early capitalism in the 19th century.

So, if individualism does not mean “a sense of self”, what does it mean?

I would argue there are two aspects to it. Once the aforementioned tendency to put the individual above the society and apart from it, but also to create and sell a personal philosophy that people are defined by their differences from others, rather than what they have in common. It tells people that they are all so very different from everyone else, which is a useful political tool for capitalism to fight collective actions such as unions, but also collective action for things like environmental protection. In the same vein it is used to keep people riled up against one another within society, as they focus on their differences, rather than what they have in common.

The most anarchistic professor I had at university put it very well: “If you as a worker talk to a factory worker from Bangladesh, you will find you have a lot in common. In fact you will always have more in common with this other worker rather than any billionaire there is.”

Which brings me to the other aspect that individualism is about: It sells you an individualistic dream. Which is why capitalism focuses so much on those rags to riches stories (that tend to be lies most of the time). “See, this millionaire started out his business in daddy’s garage. So you can also become a billionaire if you have the right idea.” Fellow leftist might know the saying: “You are just one bad day away from homelessness, but you will never be a billionaire.” Which is basically the counter argument to this.

See, capitalism tries to convince you, that “I am the better system, because in me you could become a billionaire,” to sell you not only on your own exploitation, but the exploitation of the masses.

And more than that, capitalism also has realized that it can use individualism to make you a better consumer. I alluded to this a bit further up. But the long and short of it is, that capitalism pushes this idea of “you are, what you consume”. Your individuality is defined by the things you spent money on. Maybe by you having the most expensive things, but also by you having maybe the weirdest things or something. You know, the “not like the other girls” girl will probably spend as much, if not more on the things that make her special, as “the other girls”.

This also goes into the whole idea of greenwashing, pinkwashing and rainbow capitalism. All this is about getting you to consume something to gain some sort of individual aspect from it. Basically, through buying the “green” stuff, you are a better consumer.

Ironically this also goes into the entire anti-shipping discourse, which basically also says that your goodness as a person is defined by the things you consume.

Capitalism is selling you your identity. Your individual identity.

But sadly this is an idea very, very deeply engrained into the heads of most who have grown up in capitalism. Because it is everywhere in media. Sure, there is some media that calls it out, but most of it actually peddles the idea of the individual.

Because this is the second aspect at the core of individualism: The myths that only individuals can change something, rather than a collective. Which is what I call out so often when I am talking about the entire punk-genre stuff.

Even though it is less punk, let me take Star Wars as an example, because it is an amazing example of this. Especially the original trilogy, in which the Rebellion battles the Empire. However, the evil Empire is not defeated because the Rebellion manages to somehow outwit or outmaneuvre the Empire. Or because maybe the collective of the workers in the Empire turn against it. Rather it gets defeated because Luke, the individual, turns Darth Vater, an individual, and defeats the Emperor, the individual. Which goes back to this idea of the “great man”. It is those unique individuals who will save the world, rather than collective action.

This idea of some individuals being the ones to save the world, rather than we – the people – as a group and ourselves, is used to keep the people pacified under capitalism. They are waiting for “a good billionaire” to solve climate change, homelessness and all the other problems for us, rather than getting active themselves. They keep telling themselves: “Hey, under capitalism everyone can be a billionaire, including myself, and also my life isn’t that bad right now. So who cares that under socialism/communism everyone could be lifted up?”

Look, folks. I am saying this lovingly. But you are not as much of an individual as you think. You are your own person, but you are not unique. In fact, if you talk to a random person on the street – no matter who they are – and you and them are not instantly judging each other for one reason or another, you will find that you have a lot more in common than you think. Capitalist individualism just taught you to not see this, because your empathy can be its undoing.

As citizens of a liberal capitalist society, our desires constitute an amalgam of individualistic, competitive, and acquisitive yearnings. Consequently, we tend to see ourselves as individuals destined to compete for scarce resources, striving to fulfill a range of personal desires for sex, wealth, status, or security. Desire is largely viewed as a matter of self-interest expressed within the realms of work, politics, and even love. Informed by a capitalist sensibility, desire is often reduced to yearnings for an accumulation of private property, both material and symbolic. Even matters of spirituality, meaning, and aesthetics tend to be translated into quests to ‘acquire’ personal truth and beauty. Rarely do we view desire as a yearning to enhance a social whole greater than our selves, a desire to enrich the larger community.

Chaia Heller, Ecology of Everyday Life: Rethinking the Desire for Nature

we gotta stop telling moms* to learn to ask for and accept help

this is a pseudo-mental-health bullshit way of subtly individualizing a multilayered structural and societal (often classist) problem wherein people in general, parents especially, mothers specifically, and neurodivergent mothers to the extreme, are left to fend for ourselves in ways that are frankly unprecedented in the history of human beings

I'm sure there are people who struggle to ask for help. (I've never been one of them.) What I'm saying is, even if they could learn to, it wouldn't solve anything!

Let's look at the assumptions behind "you need to learn to ask for help!"

That there's someone to ask. Who tf are we meant to be asking? If you live in a culture where families have scattered, you might not have any family nearby. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a partner, but if so, I feel like we can already assume you're asking for help from them, and them from you. (If you're not, that's a whole separate issue.) But often the overwhelm isn't such that an equitable division of labor between two parents can solve the problem. I have one non-partner family member nearby whom I can ask for help, and that actually feels pretty lucky.

That people you ask will agree to help. I recently messaged the entire school community list begging someone to drive one of my kids home on Wednesdays, figuring that many people must be going in that direction anyway and surely someone would be willing to stop the car and let my kid out at the end of my street. When I didn't get any responses from the wider community, I sent a smaller plea to the parents in my kids' classes. Nothing! Nada!

That our problems are such that others can (easily) help. There's a tragic het script that's like "I don't bother to ask him for help because I end up doing more work to get him to help than it would've been to do myself" (and yes that's fucked), but that's not even what I'm pointing to here. There are so many ways that the structures of our society make it so that people can't get help from others. School pickup, for example: most schools have policies that only parent/guardians or someone given prior permission can pick up students. If a parent is unexpectedly in a jam, this makes finding help a lot trickier and probably involves calling the school and trying to grant last-minute permission. Helping a kid with homework, for example: No matter what I do, teachers email/call me. This means that if I assign this task to my partner or some other person, I have to constantly be an in-between who is like, the arbiter of information. Going to the pharmacy: once I went to the pharmacy to help a neighbor with a kid who had been vomiting for 12 hours straight, and it was so difficult. First I had to pick up their insurance card, write down the kid's name, dob, etc. I still didn't know half the answers to things they asked me as I painstakingly eventually managed to pick up this kid's prescription.

That you have money to pay for outsourcing. Often, when it comes down to it, the only way our society seamlessly allows for help is through monetizing the tasks. It's possible to hire housecleaners or a nanny, for example. You can pay for grocery delivery. But (even if you're totally fine with becoming an employer, which I've never been) is that financially within reach for most people? No!!!

That the tasks that are hardest for you are tasks that can be outsourced. With adhd, my biggest chore struggles are getting myself to water the plants and getting myself to fill the pill organizers. These are not the easiest chores to get help with! I mean, even laundry would be easier, as you could chuck it all into a giant bag and hand it over to a service to be washed. But plants? They're all over my house and on different watering schedules. The pill organizers? That's controlled substances (Adderall, baby) and it's confusing with multiple times of day, etc -- who is going to take that on? Even my partner is too worried to get it wrong.

That, even if you have money, the service you need exists. I really want help with food preparation, but I have MCAS and specific dietary needs. Also, I don't want help with dinners (my partner does that) so much as I want help with snacks/lunch. I know what I would make if I had the energy to. There are no services in my area that could help me. I guess I could hire a personal chef, but I can't even begin to afford that and even then, many wouldn't work bc they're not all willing to work with different dietary needs. I tried finding something I could order by mail, but there's nothing that's a great fit and it's all too expensive for me.

The problem is not that moms don't know how to ask for and accept help. Every time we say that, we reinforce the idea that the problem is an individual one, that the fault lies with moms. It's a structural one, and it doesn't. Many of us are well aware of how to ask for help. If we aren't asking, it's because we know it's futile.

*The choice to gender this as "moms" is a conscious one, even though it also applies to some men and nb people. In my view, it really is a gendered problem that overwhelmingly affects women who are mothers. Because of that, generalizing to "people" or "parents" seems to me like it would be watering down the problem, at best, or erasing the gendered component of the problem, at worst. We also shouldn't say "you need to learn to ask for help" to dads, nonbinary parents, and non-parents—but we generally don't say that to those groups anyway! The vast majority of the time, I see this being said specifically to mothers. Moreover, the response that dads get to asking for help is often different. A dad asking for help strikes people as going above and beyond and is therefore more likely to trigger people to actually help him. Think about dads whose wife goes out of town and all these people bring him casseroles. Our society is often really good at giving some help—but only in extreme cases (emergencies like acute sickness or hospital stays, grief, ….a dad alone with kids for some reason, etc), and moms asking for help with mundane things simply does not count as a justification for help in most people's minds.

I GOT IT

They privatized and corporatized community. They corporatized human rights. And people swallowed that like candy.

And combined with individualism saying "you owe nobody, least of all some unaccredited movement, anything"...

No, hear me out because when we say protest or strike or whatever else what's the FIRST thing people ask?

"who organized this?"

Y'all refuse to listen to normal people anymore. And yeah organizations are great and they offer awesome resources and support behind their actions but the more I think about it the more it just sounds like another psyop used to discredit and further marginalize the already marginalized.

Those organizations weren't always there and we were organizing WAY more effectively before them.

And now we're peaking on a fascist wave and where are they calling for strikes and unity and protests? For solidarity?

....but the small grassroots groups that only have a cashapp to raise funds are. The ones actually on the ground or at desks making posters are. The people suffering from poverty and systematic racism are.

But it's them you need to be weary of? Normal people unallied to a corporation & willing to fight the ones ruining our lives?

They might not be trustworthy, huh? Might take advantage of you?

*taps the sign aggressively*

"I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is: maybe not. But there is an 'I' in independence, individuality and integrity." -- George Carlin

The problem with most identity verification systems is that they're designed to prevent financial fraud by strangers, rather than privacy violations (and resulting interference/abuse) by family members, partners, and acquaintances. You let me pick up my prescriptions by giving my name and phone number? Do you think my abusive husband doesn't know my phone number? You let me verify my bank account with my name and birthdate? Do you think my controlling parents don't know my birthdate? You confirm my doctor's appointment with my name and address? Do you think my meddling daughter doesn't know my address? Other people have written about the sexism inherent in "mother's maiden name" as a verification question (the assumption that everyone's mother is married, that every married woman changes her name, that every child has their father's and not their mother's surname), but the bigger problem is: Do you think my abusive mother doesn't know her own name? This is why I like photo ID requirements -- my response to "Not everyone has or can afford photo ID" is "Then fix THAT, and make state ID unrelated to driving." We should all demand universal, free state ID cards. In the meantime, of course, we should support policies that offer alternative ID options for things like voting and healthcare -- but we should not compromise on mandatory individuation. Before my father passed away, his motor disabilities left him with limited abilities to write or type or speak, so he signed over power of attorney to me (which wouldn't have been necessary if he'd had access to universal design forms of communication, but that's another day's topic). I was horrified to discover that he needn't have bothered, because no one (with one exception) ever asked for the power of attorney paperwork. I signed documents for him, took money from his bank account, and consented to surgery on his behalf, and through all of it, no one ever asked for evidence that I was acting with his consent. I was horrified by how easy it was. No one questioned me. They assumed that as his daughter and caregiver, I had a right to control him. Most people, by default, are ableist, ageist, and sexist. Most people, by default, assume that people have a right to make decisions on behalf of their family members, especially if those family members are disabled. Most receptionists, doctors, nurses, bankers, and other professionals will, without a second thought, share information about a client to the client's family member, especially if the client is disabled. It doesn't occur to them to question it. Of course you can tell a wife's information to her husband -- he's her husband. Of course a woman can make an appointment for her disabled elderly father -- she's his daughter. Of course a mother can ask if her 23-year-old disabled son has picked up his medication -- she's his mother. If the decision is left to the individual professionals, most of them will, unquestioningly, defer to their own ableist, ageist, sexist biases. Individuation has to be enforced. Intra-family privacy has to be enforced. And identity verification requirements that don't protect against family members don't do that.

A veces es bueno abandonar la individualidad por quienes ama.