You Do You

To be one's true self, that's the implication of the title above this post, and it's generally good advice as well. You do you, and I'll do me; we give each other space and we don't try to force each other into doing something that doesn't sit well with our respective true selves. That's good, up to a point...

And we've past that point, at least that's my impression when I look at our increasingly fractured and atomized societies. Too much of a good thing isn't good anymore, and we've pushed the limits of individualism into an area where all social cohesion is at peril. I can't help myself but coming back to this frightening observation, and I can't help but conclude, time and time again, that the current paradigms of capitalism, neoliberalism and libertarianism are at the basis of the nihilistic wasteland we find ourselves in. There's nothing wrong with being your true self, to chase after the objectives you've set for yourself and to have and hold on to your own opinions and beliefs. But nowadays it's not merely different opinions we have to deal with, but different facts.

Here's what I mean: in the days when slavery was still normal, we could have different opinions on slavery. Maybe I would be in favor of slavery, and you would be against it. That's all good. But none of us would claim that there's no such thing as slavery. That's where we are now. And it's for a great part because of individualism gone haywire. We've reduced everything, including societal and systemic issues, to the level of the individual, most prominently so among right wingers. Most people on the left have no problem recognizing the truth and reality of systemic racism, where on the right it's only something that exists on an individual basis; some people are racist, sure, but there's no systemic racism. The same goes for poverty where on the left we see the socioeconomic structures that necessitate the existence of poverty, but on the right poverty is the result of individual failing. Always.

Climate change? According to many people on the right it simply doesn't exist, and if it does, it's not because of human activities. And all the fake solutions coming from the right are individualistic as well; you have to personally become responsible for your personal carbon footprint. You have to separate your garbage. You should buy an electric car. You should not go on vacation in an airplane. And if you fail to adhere to these strict personal rules, you're a hypocrite... The truth is that there are no individualistic solutions to systemic problems. They only serve to generate more profits for the corporations that sell us those individualistic fake solutions.

Here's the bottom line: we don't learn by ourselves. Even if Albert Einstein followed his own true self while developing his revolutionary theories, he used all that he'd learned from his teachers and the theories from his predecessors. Everything we know we've learned from other people in the now and in the past. We've developed an awesome body of knowledge as a collective in which each individual agreed on the same basic facts and reality. If we both approach a wall, we can disagree and have our own opinions on the color of the wall, theorize on how the wall got there, who built it and if it was even built at all. But we can't disagree on the fact that the wall is there, or else one of us is about to make a grave mistake, and hit that wall, or fall of the cliff right behind it. And in a society where we blindly follow people who have their own "alternative facts," we'll fall of that cliff or collide with that wall together. You do you. I do me. But we have to do us as well...

The below linked video is about how the political right benefits from, and even pushes for this growing belief in alternative facts. I find its title striking and appropriate: "The Age of Manufactured Ignorance." It's amazing to me how some people who believe the most outrageous conspiracy theories, proudly wear their ignorance as a badge of honor. I can still see Trump sitting with a couple of advisors who try to convince him of the reality of global warming, with him responding: "It's going to get colder again, you'll see." And when one of the advisers responded "I don't think science agrees with you mr. president," he came back with "I don't believe science knows." Or when he said that the corona virus would be gone come summertime. Or when... You get the picture. The Republicans in America actually hate democracy, and it's no surprise that the assault on the remnants of American democracy came from the far right. You can't have a working democracy without an informed public; this is the "why" behind their assault on truth.

I still have hope though; we're such a young species. If you cram all life's existence on this planet into a 24 hour clock, humans have existed only since a few minutes before midnight, and we made primitive wall paintings only a few seconds before midnight; we've only just arrived, and if we manage to not fall of that cliff, who knows what bright future's still ahead of us...

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