Re:Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse...
by coldtea on Sunday November 27, 2022 @03:42PM
(#33766702)
Individuals thrive in communities. Individualism is doing your thing.
What we have in the west (and increasingly the east) is the opposite: the creation of isolated cogs, educated to be mere cogs, following mass fashions, work as replacable units, and leave no mark of their existence.
Their "individuality" is reduced to consumerism, and is sold to them through chosing among ready made brands (of gadgets, clothes, cultural products). They're "invididually" part of market groups.
Those are, as you observe, better able to function alone than in the past (e.g. no need to cooperate to get it), but they also have no support group, and often not even family and friends to support them, and help them do anything and to allow them to be able to resist (work conditions, political pressure, etc).
They're not individuals, they're cogs with cookie cutter "identities". Nobody knows or cares who they are even - because each of them is as good as any other, just a unit to get some services of.
What we have in the west (and increasingly the east) is the opposite: the creation of isolated cogs, educated to be mere cogs, following mass fashions, work as replacable units, and leave no mark of their existence.
Their "individuality" is reduced to consumerism, and is sold to them through chosing among ready made brands (of gadgets, clothes, cultural products). They're "invididually" part of market groups.
Those are, as you observe, better able to function alone than in the past (e.g. no need to cooperate to get it), but they also have no support group, and often not even family and friends to support them, and help them do anything and to allow them to be able to resist (work conditions, political pressure, etc).
They're not individuals, they're cogs with cookie cutter "identities". Nobody knows or cares who they are even - because each of them is as good as any other, just a unit to get some services of.