Hyper Individualism

[Trifoilum]

Money can't buy any of those things. The truth will always exist behind the illusion

Nein. Money can pay your internet, books, and food. Those things helps in our pursuit of truth, don't you think?

To claim that love and trust bought by money is an illusion is also.....well, it might be true in a specific way of looking. They don't last if the money don't, yeah; but who's to say the feelings felt and/or given aren't real? (especially trust.)

as per art as a whole..... people consume them all the time (with money)
your point?

 

[Trifoilum]

There ain't much social harmony in this capitalist world and where there is harmony there is people desensitised to their true human potential

Capitalism is against tolerance and awareness that's why there isn't as much as there should be. Capitalism relies on the innate decency of people to hold their rotten system together

Oh, I lived in a country where it's still shoved on my face all the time. Implicitly or explicitly, for better or worse.
Yet greed still prevails. Cooperation is becoming a prison instead a foundation. People are shoved into a place where they must play nice to each other, and that's growth-stunting.

My point is, the death of capitalism isn't a cure-all.

Ah. On an unrelated topic, probably the opposite of hyper individualism is hyper dehumanization. When humans aren't thinking of themselves as a separate humanity but only as cogs and wheels in the complex machine that is the social world.

Well. Don't get me wrong btw, I don't really disagreed with some of your statement. If your point is 'a search for human's true potential is good', then I completely agreed. But where does it fit into our individualism plate? I would reckon 'survival' and ...for lack of better words, 'divinity' is placed on a different level.

 

[muir]

Nein. Money can pay your internet, books, and food. Those things helps in our pursuit of truth, don't you think?

To claim that love and trust bought by money is an illusion is also.....well, it might be true in a specific way of looking. They don't last if the money don't, yeah; but who's to say the feelings felt and/or given aren't real? (especially trust.)

as per art as a whole..... people consume them all the time (with money)
your point?

Money is what is used to gain access to things in a capitalist society, but it isn't essential....they just want us to believe it is essential. The capitalist system also uses the internet, books and food to control people and to divert them from the truth.

If trust is bought the person who is paying th money will at least hold a corrupted view of trust even if the truster doesn't. Personally i think the truster should wise up and is probably in for a nasty shock at some point!

What capitalism defines as art is not necessarily what i would define as art and i belive art and the truth to be one and the same.

Capitalism uses what they define as art as a commodity to be traded. It is a safe way for the capitalist class to invest money and protect their wealth. That is why we hear about hedge fund managers buying artworks for crazy money....do they care about the truth? No they only care about their money.....believe it

The monetary value of the so called art is created by the market, which the capitalist class manipulate for their ends

 

[muir]

Oh, I lived in a country where it's still shoved on my face all the time. Implicitly or explicitly, for better or worse.
Yet greed still prevails. Cooperation is becoming a prison instead a foundation. People are shoved into a place where they must play nice to each other, and that's growth-stunting.

My point is, the death of capitalism isn't a cure-all.

Ah. On an unrelated topic, probably the opposite of hyper individualism is hyper dehumanization. When humans aren't thinking of themselves as a separate humanity but only as cogs and wheels in the complex machine that is the social world.

Well. Don't get me wrong btw, I don't really disagreed with some of your statement. If your point is 'a search for human's true potential is good', then I completely agreed. But where does it fit into our individualism plate? I would reckon 'survival' and ...for lack of better words, 'divinity' is placed on a different level.

What country are you from if you don't mind me asking?

I have to go out now but would like to reply later

 

[Kgal]

No, it has been a dog eat cat world since we stepped out of eden. Now, with capitalism, we're experiencing people screw other people like never before. Sure, there have been wars in the past and there certainly are now but people are making it hard on others to live a life without financial burdens.

Instead of cooperating with each other for survival, we screw each other over so that we can have a bunch of shit. Society has become empty.

That is called a "Zero Sum" game. For any individual to win - someone must lose. That's how our society is set up.
There is no emphasis on a Cooperative approach when we are in dire need of this attitude. The Prisoner's Dilemma gives an example: The prisoner's dilemma is a fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so.

 

[Kgal]

[MENTION=3545]bickelz[/MENTION]

My apologies for asking you the name of the book. When I reread your intro I saw it there.

You said you think your professor means individualism is more about isolation. Is that right?

For example:
I'm feeling anxious because I may be losing my job soon due to closing the program. I'm not really aware of my anxiety as it rides just below the surface in my mind. I see a shoe sale in the local paper ads. I react to my anxiety and I go shopping. I oooh and ahhh at all of the new sparkly shoes. This is fun. This is exciting. This causes some dopamine to course through my mind because I'm programmed or - conditioned - or encouraged by media ads - to think shopping is fun.

I could have instead allowed myself to be vulnerable and call my best girl friend and ask her to meet at her place and work with her horse, drink some coffee, etc., and talk.

What is the learning process that makes most choose to shop? What is that mechanism?

I believe the "learning process" of how to act in our society is geared to fulfill the one's in power AND feed the money machine.

I was talking with Blind Bandit the other night about how it used to be here in the US when multiple families lived within the same home with many rooms. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Mom and Dad, and children all under the same roof. Then came WWII and the industrial age took a huge upswing in this country. All the manufacturing giants needed to keep making stuff to increase their profits didn't they? Greed...

So they started advertising the Nuclear Family concept. Each family unit, Mom Dad Jr and Sissy, was portrayed as living in their own home - driving to work in their brand new Chevrolet. So now - instead of one refrigerator, washer, dryer, stove in a household of multiple families - one needed at least 2. See what I'm talking about?
For every multi family home - being split up into single family homes - the potential for profits was staggering.

This is the beginning of the isolation - or individualistic movement. It all began with Capitalism and Greed.

I was pointing out to BB that in a multifamily home the potential for at least one of the parenting figures - be it Grandpa or Uncle - was better for the child in that they may have a better way of understanding each other. With regard to types - let's say you are an INFJ child and your Mom is an ESTJ and you cannot grasp each others point of view. If this child was born into a multifamily home, the odds are they might have other parenting figures who are NOT ESTJ's - and so on. Oh - sorry - I digress off topic.

Anyway. As Blind Bandit pointed out - it takes a Village to raise a child. I think it takes a Village for true happiness to naturally abound.

The idea of isolation or individualism was termed as Cocooning back in the '90's.

Cocooning is the name given to the trend that sees individuals socializing less and retreating into their home more. The term was coined in the 1990s by Faith Popcorn, a trend forecaster and marketing consultant. Popcorn identified cocooning as a commercially significant trend that would lead to, among other things, stay-at-home electronic shopping.

As Muir said - They know what they're doing. And as Norton pointed out - it's the sheeple who are being herded.

I still say - it's because we've been taught that happiness comes from without - instead of within - wherever that erroneous idea stems from.

 

[Norton]

This thread is supposed to be about "hyper individualism" but it has become a debate about capitalism vs. socialism. There seems to be an implicit assumption that "hyper individuals" (whatever they are) are more typical in a capitalist society. However, we know that all MBTI types exist in all societies and economic system. In a capitalist system an ENTJ might be the captain of industry or Wall Street titan some might accuse of oppressing the masses and "wage slaves," a loaded term if there ever was one. In a socialist society, that same ENTJ might be the head of State Industry or the Planning Directorate or the State controlled Television Station. It really doesn't matter what system you preach. The people are the same and they will express their personalities within their particular contexts. A narcissistic little Hitler will oppress and exploit people regardless of which tools of power the capitalist or socialist system provides.

It is critically important that the political system and politicians be subordinate to the Rule of Law, corruption is discouraged and prosecuted, and a variety of checks and balances regulate the political and economic system. I am a believer in regulated free markets (every system must have rules). I believe in the automaticity of the capitalist system. I believe that the market system of capitalism is a direct descendant of the natural tendency of humans to trade throughout evolutionary history. I believe that some form of "capitalism" is in our nature. However, I have no illusions that capitalism is perfect. That is why there are legal systems that can be modified to keep things fair and equitable, even if there is a lag between inequities and the adoption of new laws.

There are, and always will be, some poor people in all systems, be they capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist, etc. This is a statistical inevitability and will never change. Some people are unlucky, others are stupid, some have physical or psychological disorders and some are subject to inevitable inequities within society. No matter the best of societal intentions, one school is going to be worse than another and one neighborhood is going to be less affluent than another. It is a simplistic, naive, utopian dream to believe that any political/economic system can avoid inequalities. I think the optimum goal of a system should be to minimize the inequities in opportunity while providing incentive to risk takers with talent, energy, and foresight who improve things for everybody.

 

[not sure]

I am not attacking you...i am attacking the idea of capitalism....i should be clearer about that really when i have these discussions

I was not discussing capitalism.

Not really. The worlds population was much smaller in hunter gatherer days so it is likely that there wasn't the level of conflict as there is now under capitalism and also that when there was conflict there was no where near the numbers affected....conflicts now affect millions of people at a time.

Also people were not atomised like they are now, they were living in tightly knit communities so they didn't have to compete every day of their lives....they worked together for the common good. The better off the community was, the better off they were as individuals.

How do you know this? How do you know there was less conflict? Sure conflict affects millions of people now simply because we have millions of people now and more advanced technology. They were competing everyday of their lives with mother nature and each other. Take a look outside. There's not a whole lot to eat or haven't you noticed?

Each generation is born into the capitalist system and will use the capitalist media unless others tell them it is not representing the truth, or they figure it out for themselves....either way this often takes time and it is pretty hard to avoid the pervasive capitalist media....it is everywhere.

Oh I see.. so you have some how escaped the propaganda of capitalism but I'm still brainwashed because I don't agree with you.

Each generation born into the capitalist system has to learn anew how the game works and how they must fit into it or drop through the cracks

Name a system where this isn't true.

The state is. When people protested against the government in the US in 1970 the government resonded by shooting people in the Kent State shootings. The UK government also shot its own civilians on 'bloody sunday'. Many people bare scars in the UK where they have protested peacefully and the police (which are the hired thugs of the capitalist class and exist mainly to protect the rich) battered the fuck out of them. Recent student demos in London were met by a police cavalry charge...the crowd was full of school children, women and young university students.

We have a history going way back in this country. In the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 the government responded to a protest of 80,000 people who wanted a reform of the corrupt parliament with a cavalry charge where they killed and wounded hundreds with their sabres. The peasant revolt back in 1381 saw serfs empowered after many had been killed by the plague. Suddenly due to their reduced numbers their labour was more valued and they made a stand against the ruling class demanding better rights ('scarcity' in capitalist speak). The King rode out to meet the peasants leader Wat tyler under a flag of peace and instead of meeting their democratic demands his squire murdered Tyler. the kings troops then surrounded the peasants and told them at sword point (the gun wasn't around yet) to get the fuck back into the fields and back to work or they would kill them

Irrelevant to the question asked.

I do as far as possible avoid certain products and i only consume what i need, but when you wake upto how the system works you find that you are in a web and it is a difficult process for the individual to pick off each strand of the web to free themselves. People don't have a choice what system they are born into and for a large part are prisoners within it whether they like it or not. I do try to opt out as far as possible and if everyone did simple things like moving their money to ethical banks or credit unions then the larger, corrupt banking establishments would fail.....this takes awareness through education though and capitalism will not proivde that awareness because it is counter productive to capitalism and in fact will often suppress those who are trying to make others aware.

Could it be that there are people who find value in the products you avoid or are the products to disappear because you unilaterally decided they weren't worthy? Society's actions as a whole are the aggregate result of individual actions. Get used to it.

I am trying to present a perspective that is not reflected in the capitalist media....if it bores you to hear new perspectives then maybe you should ignore my posts in the future

But if you want my opinion then what you are doing there is what i like to call 'self policing'

What bores me is that you've not bothered to read my individualism post in this thread and instead have taken it as an invite to indoctrinate me.

I don't like growing government either, but the capitalist media will not tell people that there are other forms of socialism which don't agree with centralised power

People are trained by the capitalist media and the education system (which teaches history...badly) to think: 'socialism=communism, communism=russia, russia=oppression)

In that way they shut down any discussion of other possible ways of allocating resources and turn people into their own prison guards by getting them to defend the very system that oppresses them

Here we go again. We are all brainwashed zombies incapable of researching and deciding for ourselves.

 

[not sure]

It was capitalism that uprooted your anscestors and dumped them on a caribbean island (albeit a beautiful one) with nothing but rags to wear

It wasn't capitalism that stopped slavery and people working dawn to dusk it was enlightened individuals who stood AGAINST capitalism that stopped slavery despite capitalism. Now capitalism has just sourced out slavery to the sweatshops of asia and central america instead

You think since then capitalism has helped you?


If for the last 300 years you had been living under a libertarian socialist system we would have seen a hell of a lot more progress than that

What do you know about my ancestors? I'm on a Caribbean island so my ancestors were automatically slaves right? I smoke marijuana, where dreadlocks and swing from the trees like a monkey? Right. You assume that the people wearing rags were all black don't you? And what if my ancestors were white? They must have come here to oversee the slaves. What possible motivation could there have been? You don't know anything about my ancestors other than what you've read in a book so don't go there.

Slavery has never been confined to capitalist societies. Capitalism is an economic system no more no less. How people choose to behave is entirely their choice and they are certainly capable of carrying out atrocities under any system and they have.

Christ....if you think that progress over 300 years is people having more outfits of clothes to wear then you have very low expectations

Yes. I think it's progress to have warm clothing, food in your belly and the opportunity to determine how far you want to rise in life by your own efforts and ingenuity. If that deserves ridicule, pile it on, I can bear it. As far as I am concerned anything beyond that is a luxury. If you want to have luxuries you better take some risk to get them. Don't expect me to just hand over the fruits of my labour. It is beyond me why anyone would expect capitalism to solve all of society's ills. It's an economic system. Nothing prevents you from implementing complementary systems to tackle other problems.

Now, I was discussing individualism and I am not continuing with this thread derail.

 

[muir]

So I just pseudo finished a book my Psychology professor wrote called "Nations of One" and it was all about the notion of the evolution of hyper-individualism (HI) in the late 20th and 21st centuries. HI is defined exactly how it sounds, an excessive amount of individualism. But this individualism was brought about by the current economic system that says if you have money, you can be happy. The saying "greed is good" has become our motto in a sense.

She believes that this has lead to an immense feeling of loneliness and emptiness in our lives. For some of the HI individuals, they believe that they are what they consume. For developed HI individuals, it is about finding your true self while trying to balance the economic part of our lives, the stage that many of us are at now. People consume to fill a vacuum. Love, trust, truth, art, music and written language have taken a backseat to money and what it can do for us.

She also made the point that when many people are looking for relationships, they look for what the other person can do for them only, a very economic point of view.

Now, I don't want to go on and say "we need to return to values" like Sara Palin but there is a void in our society that needs to be pointed out. Speaking of Ms Palin, my professor also made the point that the "freedom" that is talked about by people like her and other Americans is HI; the ability to consume to fill the void. That is what seems to be their working definition of freedom.

Has anyone else heard of this? What do you think of it?

Sorry this was poorly articulated, I left a bit out so if there are questions, i could answer them for better clarity. I should also note that I don't think she believes that individualism is bad but rather that the circumstances in which people are becoming individualistic were not evolutionarily developed.

I have highlighted the bits in the OP which explain why it is relevant here for any poster to write a critique of the 'current economic system' and to offer alternative ideas as an expression of what they 'think of it'

 

[muir]

I was not discussing capitalism..

The thread is talking about the 'current economic system' which is capitalism

How do you know this? How do you know there was less conflict? Sure conflict affects millions of people now simply because we have millions of people now and more advanced technology. They were competing everyday of their lives with mother nature and each other. Take a look outside. There's not a whole lot to eat or haven't you noticed?

You'd be better asking an archeologist about levels of conflict....i suggest you ask them if they have found any massed graves from the hunter gatherer period containing hundreds of thousands of bones

People don't compete with mother nature, we are part of nature. It is the belief that we are seperate that is part of the capitalist ethos which is why we are raping the environment at the moment instead of realising that if we hurt nature we hurt ourselves, because we are a part of it. It is the height of capitalist arrogance to pretend that we are not part of nature

There has always been plenty of food on the planet that's why we as a species have thrived. When food was determined by solar energy alone the earth could only sustain a certain size of population but the exploitation of latent energies such as oil, coal and gas has created surplus food and a booming population....the question is where is that taking us?

Oh I see.. so you have some how escaped the propaganda of capitalism but I'm still brainwashed because I don't agree with you.

I think your perceptions are the product of capitalism and that the capitalist system is leading us down a dangerous path

Name a system where this isn't true.

Libertarian socialism wouldn't have cracks for people to fall through because it is about working together....it is not dog eat dog

Irrelevant to the question asked.

You asked me to say who was holding a gun to my head and i told you 'the state'. I then supported this statement with historic examples that prove that the capitalist class rule by violence

Could it be that there are people who find value in the products you avoid or are the products to disappear because you unilaterally decided they weren't worthy? Society's actions as a whole are the aggregate result of individual actions. Get used to it.

Value is subjective and we are having a discussion about why people in the west are unhappy. People, including myself are putting the idea forward that part of it is to do with consumerism and the value which is placed on things that have no satisfying meaning.

I am used to it. I have a good understanding of the capitalist system which is why i am financially secure.

I have benefited a great deal under the capitalist system. But that doesn't mean that i can't look past myself and see that the system does not provide for everyone and that in fact it makes slaves of most of humanity, including myself. Are you aware that our serial numbers from our birth certficates are traded on the stock exchange? Our governments place value on us.....just like slaves.

What bores me is that you've not bothered to read my individualism post in this thread and instead have taken it as an invite to indoctrinate me.

You put your view across and i put my view across......we can then decide what we do with it.

 

[muir]

What do you know about my ancestors? I'm on a Caribbean island so my ancestors were automatically slaves right? I smoke marijuana, where dreadlocks and swing from the trees like a monkey? Right. You assume that the people wearing rags were all black don't you? And what if my ancestors were white? They must have come here to oversee the slaves. What possible motivation could there have been? You don't know anything about my ancestors other than what you've read in a book so don't go there.

You're being unfair here....it was you that said your anscestors wore rags

Jamaica was part of Britain so it has shared history. I am from Scotland. Many Scots went to Jamaica as 'indentured' workers, which is effectively a form of slavery. People seem to focus a lot on the slave trade to the new world but slavery is universal. There was a white slave trade in the mediteranean over a large span of time including the Romans, the Corsair pirates and the mamlukes of Egypt

Many Scots were also involved in the slave trade which is a dark period of Scottish history, which is why many Jamaican people have Scottish surnames.

Scotland itself was subjugated by Britain and suffered a great deal as a result. Cycles of violence and oppression.

I once read a book by V.S Naipal called 'A Wounded Nation' which was about India, which i was visiting at the time. I was struck by how much of it related to Scotland. Scotland is a wounded nation. It is portrayed as the 'sick man of Europe' in the capitalist media which doesn't mention that it's situation was brought about by capitalism, which also lead to the destruction of the gaelic way of life in the north and the clearance of the highlands.

The gutting of the industry in central Scotland left a generation without jobs leading to a variety of social ills which take a long time to heal. Have you seen the film 'Trainspotting'? That heroin epidemic largely came about because of economic upheaval which occurs because the markets don't assess the human costs only the economic ones.

Slavery has never been confined to capitalist societies. Capitalism is an economic system no more no less. How people choose to behave is entirely their choice and they are certainly capable of carrying out atrocities under any system and they have.

Capitalism grew out of fuedalism with people transforming from serfs to wage slaves.

People don't have that much choice that is what i am saying. Capitalism is very restrictive. We are all plugged well into the capitalist grid which is why i suggested trying not to pay your bills, taxes, rent/mortgage for a while and seeing what will happen. Just cos you can't see the chains, doesn't mean they aren't there. It is also possible to shackle the mind.

It is my view that slavery is alive and well and now more prevalent then ever before. If you don't share that perception then fine...good luck to you (and i mean that)

Yes. I think it's progress to have warm clothing, food in your belly and the opportunity to determine how far you want to rise in life by your own efforts and ingenuity. If that deserves ridicule, pile it on, I can bear it. As far as I am concerned anything beyond that is a luxury. If you want to have luxuries you better take some risk to get them. Don't expect me to just hand over the fruits of my labour. It is beyond me why anyone would expect capitalism to solve all of society's ills. It's an economic system. Nothing prevents you from implementing complementary systems to tackle other problems.

Now, I was discussing individualism and I am not continuing with this thread derail.

You don't get the fruits of your labour under capitalism...you get a cut...a 'wage'! The capitalist class get the rewards...take a look at the bankers bonuses! What are they getting rewarded for....ruining the economy?

That is not progress....that is giving people just enough that they don't rebel.

Capitalism doesn't solve problems it creates them

 

[not sure]

You're being unfair here....it was you that said your anscestors wore rags

You are so busy pushing your agenda that you have not bothered to read what I wrote. If you look back at the post you will see that you are quite simply WRONG.

You love jumping to conclusions.

I am not impressed that you read Naipaul. His views are largely capitalist and colonialist. Irregardless, I don't need Naipaul to make up my mind for me.

I simply put forward a definition of individualism as distinct from selfishness and what you've chosen to do is to stalk me from another thread. You are so busy bellowing that you are right that it isn't possible for any reasonable discussion. You assume that anyone who sees value in capitalism does not see the value in other systems. The long and short of it is you make too many assumptions.

So, excuse my while I, the wage-slave, suppressed, brainwashed, ignorant of her own history child, ignore your continued ranting.

 

[muir]

It's too late to ignore me, you've already read it

 

[toska]

The thread is talking about the 'current economic system' which is capitalism.

Isn't it more like globalist fascism?

 

[muir]

Isn't it more like globalist fascism?

I'd agree with that!

 

[Flavus Aquila]

The various forms of media displace the need for relating with others personally.


Whenever/wherever there is a prolonged black-out for whatever cause, people start talking to the others around them.

 

[Trifoilum]

[MENTION=1871]muir[/MENTION]; Indonesia.
And as per your reply, well; suffice it to say I probably don't know much to satiate, so I'll agree to disagree and keep it at that. XD

 

[This]

The various forms of media displace the need for relating with others personally.


Whenever/wherever there is a prolonged black-out for whatever cause, people start talking to the others around them.

Whenever the power goes out here, people come out of their houses and wander the streets, kinda spooky actually.

 

[muir]

@muir; Indonesia.
And as per your reply, well; suffice it to say I probably don't know much to satiate, so I'll agree to disagree and keep it at that. XD

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5488926059460319590#