Veil Of Individualism

Society is crumbling. We're losing the bonds that once defined the place that shaped who we are, and we're losing our ability to shape that place with our presence. Human interaction shapes who we are, and in return shapes the person or thing we interact with.

It's an incredible thing when you think about it. When we interact with the world, we change the world as much as the world changes us. Simple example: if I put in the work to make a peanut-butter sandwich, it changes me, especially when I'v eaten it, for now I've satisfied my need for food. It also changed the world; there's now a peanut-butter sandwich where there was none before, and when I've eaten it there's a revitalized me where there was none before. Nature, life, it's all a continues never ending process of endless interactions, infinite reshaping, creation and destruction. This applies to anything and everything, but to humans in particular. We're the product of all our interactions, but primarily of our interactions with other humans, starting with our parents and family.

We once knew this to be true, long before we could explain why it's true, before we invented a word, words or scientific definitions to describe this truth. You and me, we're interacting right now, dear reader, as you're consuming the words, ideas and thoughts I'm releasing while interacting with a screen and a keyboard that are the product of countless interactions between countless people and materials. Together we shape the world and each other, and none of us is worth diddly-squat without all the rest. We once knew this to be true, but this truth is being obscured by a veil of individualism. Society is crumbling, we're losing the bonds through which we shape each other because we've been made to believe that there's no society, there's only me, myself and I.

We've organized our world, we've shaped our crumbling society in such a manner that we act only for our own benefit. We've normalized the fact that we work harder and longer as time and technology progress. We've adopted a philosophy of "I've got to get mine" and we've forgotten that actually many hands make light work. In our version of modern times all the many hands work harder and longer to enrich a few individuals, and we're okay with that because individuals is all we see. And to those individuals who make it to the top of our socioeconomic structure we ascribe special talents. They're just better than us. They must be. How else can we justify the astronomical difference in wealth, power and freedom? We'd go mad, burn up with anger if we were to find out or admit to ourselves that these "winners" are in fact not better than us at all, in any way, shape or form.

But that's the truth; no one accomplishes anything on their own or by themselves. Anything. Everything that's achieved is achieved through countless interactions, is the result of a never ending process of innumerable interactions between people and things, now, in the past and into the future. Our collective future. But we're not supposed to know this. We're supposed to stay ignorant behind the veil of individualism that's been carefully crafted and diligently maintained by those few individuals who have everything to lose if we were to break through that veil.

One of those individuals is Jordan B. Peterson. In the below linked video he makes the case that there's no such thing as institutional racism. Instead there exist only individuals who individually act mean against individuals of color. With this mindset, this hugely misinformed mindset, there's nothing but individual problems and individual solutions. There's no such thing as systemic poverty. If you're poor, it's your fault, you haven't been working hard enough or aren't talented enough. There's no patriarchy, male or female chauvinism, there's nothing, in short, that can be explained by analyzing the bonds that tie individuals together in groups, there's no shared past or future, no shared goals or problems to be solved.

Well, I'm sorry to say that there are no individual solutions to systemic problems. It's a completely fake move to try to solve climate change by focusing on each and every individual carbon footprint, when the planet is depleted from its resources by a system that demands eternal economical growth and profits. Jordan Peterson is wrong, and all who spread the same message are wrong. They've all forgotten the truth I've tried to convey in this post. So watch the video, and I hope you'll agree that Jordan Peterson is full of it.

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