When you’re writing your posts about the anomie of modern individualistic atomized existence, and talking about how we need to find some more-communitarian more-interconnected more-tribal-level mode of life…please remember what tribes are actually like.
Tribes are, basically, big families. You know how families work, probably. You were probably raised in one.
And – don’t get me wrong – there are many great things about families. It is cool that, due to the power of collective identity, resources can be distributed in a literally final-stage-communist fashion with very little friction. It is cool that you can get to know everyone super well, and keep an accurate map of all the relationships. It is cool that people care about you, no fooling, they really care about you, they are not going to drop you just because you’ve become inconvenient or whatever.
Nonetheless. Somehow, I’m betting that most of you fled from the bosom of your families in order to go live out in the big cold atomized impersonal individualistic world, and you’re not exactly champing at the bit to go back.
Because there are costs, and they are crushing. Families do not understand, cannot understand, personal boundaries. The counterbalance to “your family will always care about you” is “your family will feel free to use and remake every part of your existence.” Families are places where every point of incompatibility or tension will be rubbed raw until it bleeds and festers, because people can’t just agree to leave each other alone. Families subordinate your dreams to their own collective ambitions and values. Families run Every. Single. Thing. through a system of manipulative personal politics.
Different people have different levels of tolerance for such things, and so the individualism / tribalism tradeoff plays out differently in every case. But if you’re reading this, I am prepared to bet money that you really really really benefit from the advantages of social individualism, no matter how much loneliness and anomie you might be feeling.
Squaring this circle is super hard. It is one of my major long-term intellectual projects. Finding a system that combines “people really care about each other in a reliable fashion” and “resources get shared in a non-stupid way” with “people will respect your individual preferences/ambitions” and “people have the space not to impinge upon each other intolerably” is…well, it may be impossible, and if it’s possible I’m pretty sure no one’s figured it out yet. But I’m betting that, at such time as we do figure it out, it’s not going to look anything like segmentary communitarianism.
OK, I’m rereading this, and I should add an addendum, because this is important and I feel bad about eliding it earlier.
For those of you who are, e.g., raising children or planning to do so: my point is definitely not that all (nuclear) family environments are psychologically horrible. It is not even that it is impossible to have a (nuclear) family that shows respect for its members’ individual autonomy, etc. You can definitely do those things. I have seen people who do. Those people are heroes.
But it is so costly! It is so difficult! God, it is one of the hardest and most expensive projects ever undertaken by man. It basically entails saying “we are going to pour all our resources into one or two or three children, we are going to give them claims on every part of us, and we are going to ask nothing in return. We are going to strip our souls and our bank accounts bare for people whom we fully expect may up and leave us because they will want to live their own lives and pursue their own dreams.”
Most families are not capable of this. Most families aren’t trying for this. Most families expect payment in devotion for their care, according to the ancient tribal logic. And the bigger and more extended your family is, the stronger the pull of that tribal logic will be.
(referring to the original post but keeping the addendum) I know it’s a Tumblr cliche, but: someone finally said it.
Also, local communities will inevitably be crushing to some in the same way as nuclear families are, even though both are net good things. Any system in which you have to rely on the personal favor of the people immediately around you for basic resources is going to be capable of thoroughly screwing anyone who deviates from the local norm. I have a very strong leave-me-alone-and-get-out-of-my-business drive and for most people with that temperament libertarianism has obvious appeal, and I get that, but ultimately this isexactly why I favor centralized distribution of essential survival needs on a universal entitlement basis. Large-scale centralized systems need to be impersonal, they need to apply to everyone, and that means that in the worst-case scenario, where you drew a bad card in the birth lotto and your family or the local elders are terrible and toxic and abusive and hate you for your nature etc, you as a member of the greater society still have recourse. I’m as suspicious of left-anarchist models that rely solely on mutual aid and solidarity as I am of these tribal utopias [sic as hell] you see proposed by ethnotraditionalists.
To be clear, I’m totally on board with having a universal safety net from a financial policy standpoint. And I was raised in an actual fundamentalist cult, so I am well aware of the negative impacts of tribalism. However, there are two points that I haven’t seen addressed by people advocating
individualistic atomization that deeply concern me:
- For most people, interpersonal interaction is a very real and fundamental psychological need.
- Many disabled, elderly, LGBT+, and otherwise marginalized people aren’t going to get any interpersonal interaction unless people around them have a sense of duty to their community which overrides their individual desire to avoid people who make them uncomfortable because they are different.
We can’t treat loneliness as if it’s some kind of lesser of two evils inconvenience that means people have to spend some of their Saturdays nights at home. Loneliness fucking kills. And has huge, empirically measurable negative effects even when it doesn’t. To the point where many people can and do knowingly stay in or return to abusive situations because the loss of autonomy is more bearable than complete isolation.
And we can’t promote something as a solution while ignoring that it’s the most marginalized people in society who are most vulnerable to its negative effects.
I think the point the earlier people are making isn’t that we shouldn’t have communities, it’s that they will always fail some people, so there needs to be a wider, impersonal social safety net in addition to local families and communities.
I agree with that point, strongly.
Tag: too often
Jordan Edwards was an innocent 15 year old child going about his business. Drugs and alcohol should not even be mentioned. Disgusting
#FuckThePolice #BlackLivesMatter #BLM
From the Dallas News story in the first screenshot:
The murder case has yet to go to a Dallas County grand jury. Oliver has since been indicted on two aggravated assault charges in an apparent road rage confrontation two weeks before the shooting. In that case, a woman said Oliver pulled out his gun after she rear-ended him in a traffic accident while he was off duty.
Oliver was not arrested…
He told Dallas officers that he had his gun at the “low ready” position and had identified himself as an officer because he thought the other driver may have been reaching for a weapon or trying to flee. Dallas police determined that no offense had occurred.
Arredondo filed a complaint against Oliver.
So, just a couple of weeks later, he shoots into a car full of children and kills one of them. Totally unforseeable, right? 😩
People act the way they think people act
Most people act the way they think people act. When people talk about what people are like, assume they’re including themselves.
For instance:
If a boss says that all bosses exploit employees, they’re likely to be terrible to work for.
If a man says that all men are rapists, misogynists, or abusers, he’s likely not a very safe person to be alone with.
If someone says that all marginalized people need to lash out at privileged people, it’s likely that they’ll eventually consider you privileged and lash out at you.
There are any number of instances of this. People tend to act the way they think people act. When people tell you how people act, or how people in a group they’re part of act, err on the side of assuming that they may act that way too.
Abuse does not make you a broken monster
Our culture often sends the message that if you were abused as a child, you’ll inevitably abuse your children.
It’s not true. I know multiple people personally who grew up in violent homes who have chosen not to be abusive. They experienced violence as children; they do not commit acts of violence as adults. It is possible, it is happening, and people making that choice deserve more respect and recognition.
It’s easier to learn how to parent well from growing up with good parents. It’s also possible to learn from other people. I know this because I’ve seen people do it. To some extent, *everyone* learns from people other than their own parents. (Including their own children. Kids are born with minds of their own, and people who respect their children learn a lot from them about how parenting can and can’t work.)
It’s a matter of degree. Everyone needs some degree of help and support in learning how to parent; some people need more help and support. Abuse (among other things) may mean that someone needs more help learning parenting; it does not mean that someone will inevitably become an abuser.
I think we need to talk about this more. Abuse survivors should not be treated as broken monsters. Violence is a choice, and abuse survivors are capable of choosing nonviolence. Abuse survivors are full human beings who have the capacity to make choices, learn skills, and treat others well.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 