Entry No.004: On Individualism
Individualism.“The idea that freedom of thought in action for each person is the most important quality of a society, rather than shared effort and responsibility.“
Individuality. “ The qualities that make a person or thing different from others.”
I want to emphasize this difference between individuality and individualism. Individuality speaks on what makes someone themselves, how they might differ from those around them. Individualism, however, is a greater ideology, often politically associated, that seeks to uplift an individual over their surrounding community. I believe many people do not understand the difference between associating what it means to be a distinct person versus wanting to actively separate from those around you. This misunderstanding is severe, seeming to have led to a massive disconnect between local people. The divide is only furthered as a symptom of several factors, some cultural, some institutional, and others out of our hands; no matter whichever they may be, I aim to diagnose the ever present individualistic mindset.
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I assume many of you grew up going to public school in America and are all too familiar with the outrageously unfair grading system, the odd manner of social isolation, and the anxieties surrounding the entire setting. I know at my school, a good student who stood out was rewarded heavily, while the ones who failed were passively, sometimes even directly, made an example. From elementary school, students who were advanced were in the “honors program,” while the “regular” students were in standard academic classes. Stickers or positive callouts were granted to those who did well while poor performance resulted in a passive remark about the class’s grade average. School instilled this belief that your value and how well you do in life is going to be determined by your grades or your achievements; not only was this massively demoralizing, it was a fear tactic to push students to do better because getting a C in one class meant your life was over.
If you don’t already think about this as much as I do, you might not know this is the instillment of pride. In the article “Why Pride is Nothing to Be Proud of” John Amodeo defines what pride is, compared to its inverse, with a more positive connotation, Dignity. Amodeo encapsulates exactly this: how there is a widespread habit to associate your self-worth with your achievements, rather than living with “dignity.” Amodeo defines dignity as finding self-worth apart from any sort of objective accomplishments and using your character as the greater judge of personhood, specifically describing it as “A more genuine and stable self-worth [is] based upon validating, affirming, and valuing ourselves as we are. Self-worth is a function of living with dignity,”(Amodeo). When in school, we are taught that our self-worth, that our future, is based on what grades we get, encouraging the objective mindset that is the basis for pridefulness. I remember feeling so down and almost attacked whenever I’d received a less than ideal grade on some math test. I remember the teacher would hand out tests upside down, as if to passively say that “if you got a bad grade, you should hide it”. I was embarrassed, it was an action designed to maybe prevent it, however, it just continues to stigmatize failure, even though it was seemingly so small. It is a miniscule seed that flowers into such an awful and gnarly problem to uproot later in life.
Many people seem to fail to understand this, what Amodeo is talking about and he, with writing the article, inherently implies that the meanings of both pride and dignity are convoluted nowadays. The main thing I pulled when I was reading this article is Amodeo’s point of pride being shame-driven. To reference what I said before, I know I’m not alone in the experience of feeling less than when given a grade that was not deemed adequate. The small action of not showing your paper to a classmate in fear that they make fun of you is promoting disconnect, disconnect that drives a young mind into isolation. This occurrence snowballs, Amodeo claims, ultimately resulting in the instinctual reaction to pull away from others when “failing”; Failure eventually becomes synonymous with any negative feeling as they are much more vulnerable then a positive feeling. Sadness, anger, envy, guilt, grief are all emotions characterized as negative and should be coped with the support of others around you. Isolation is passively encouraged through the structure of school, you pull away from others’ support and internalize it, resulting in not only isolation for the individual, but, the ability to support those around you deteriorates.
Isolation alone is a major contributor of individualism, however, when coupled with pridefulness, it engages a more narcissistic characterization, pridefulness becoming a basis for individualism. Many don't seem to understand this and believe that individualism is simply just the expression of yourself, confusing it with the definition of individuality. An article posted to the Foundation for Economic Education discusses the importance of “individualism” in American culture. Its title is “Individualism:A Deeply American Philosophy” and upon reading it, while understanding the differentiation between individualism and individuality, one can quickly assume that either there is an immense misunderstanding of what individuality and individualism are or this is the worst Freudian slip ever. The authors Patrick Carroll and Dan Sanchez go about beginning the article stating how everybody is an individualist to some extent and how the most popular and admired people in today's cultures can be considered individualist. They define individualism as “a philosophy that views people first and foremost as unique individuals rather than as members of a group,”(Carroll, Sanchez) a definition that might not be inherently incorrect but undermines the major traits of individualism and how it’s meant to put people above others. Pridefulness acts as a manner to quantify why an individual should be above another person, thus contributing to the greater individualist mindset across America.
I want to put in perspective how wrong Carroll and Sanchez's perceptions of individualism are when you have the context of its actual societal definition by pointing out their mention of Martin Luther King Jr. In the article, it is claimed that Martin Luther King Jr. is an individualist because he represents a larger movement, making massive impacts through his voice and leadership. Conflicts within the authors’ definition arise when considering that Martin Luther King Jr, yes, though he was a leader, was extremely efficient in establishing community. He was one of the majority, MLK Jr. spoke on what many people had experienced, not something solely personal to him. He wasn't put on a pedestal because he was better than anybody or had more objective success, it wasn't some sort of prideful escapade, his goal was helping his community and representing the shared effort in the fight for equality.
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The pandemic does not escape the conversation around individualism, even contributing to people’s heightened awareness of the subject. The American population was forced into separation to keep their communities safe. Individualism became more and more prevalent, many people even going as far to describe it as a state of hyper individualism nowadays. In a short writing published to Psychology Today titled “Are We All Becoming More Self-Centered?”, Ronald Riggio explains how much of individualism can be credited to a country’s rising economic status, stating how “More affluence leads to a greater sense of self-reliance and a detachment from others”. What Riggio explains, alongside the pandemic, created a perfect storm for individualism to thrive.
Many people, young and old, found ways to still connect to others online. I remember being a junior in high school for the bulk of the pandemic and mentioning something about a video game I played on a social media post. People I really never talked to in my classes ended up interacting with the post commenting ‘we should play sometime’ or other things along those lines. Over the course of lockdown we played this game together religiously, spending hours out of our days creating our virtual world.
Very slowly, the pandemic lockdown restrictions started to let up and the time we spent together virtually, diminished little by little. Eventually, our little group was back in classes. We went to the same school but it was abundantly clear that much of the time we spent together online didn't translate to a real life connection. None of us ever interacted outside of lockdown. It was extremely puzzling to me, how could we spend such a dense amount of time together and then be basically strangers? Though much of our conversation was framed around video games, there would be the occasional late night where we're talking about very personal topics together and expressing different vulnerabilities that, maybe people even closer to us in the real world, never heard.
After the fact, the extent of our interactions were just a hello here and there. It was never anything proportionate or even indicative of the time we had spent together. I began to realize something I think what a lot of people of my generation miss as we've grown up in such close proximity to the internet: Social online platforms, be it video games, chat rooms or social media are unsustainable methods of creating a connection. Stepping back from it all, those platforms are tools meant to bolster an existing connection, it is not an effective way to create something new with somebody; Yet commonly, we see people depending on those platforms as a means to sustain real world or fully digital friendships.
Subtly, digital platforms become a space promoting individualism. Real world connections are not prioritized in an online setting, people become removed from their local collectives or community in favor of faceless online interactions. This phenomenon of feeling increasingly disconnected, though engaging with social platforms online that are made to increase connection, has become exponentially prevalent in the post-pandemic world. I believe one of the most potent signs indicating digital platforms’ contribution to individualism is found in online learning.
Online learning was required for every student in America from 2020 to 2021. Research surrounding the national experience is astoundingly negative, in “Mental Health Implications of Virtual Learning on Student Engagement”, a myriad of issues are identified along the lines of the increased amounts of stress, depression and anxiety. Author Christina Muñoz comments on how much of a social impact virtual learning has. When considering the connectedness social platforms are advertised to promote, why is it that students felt so disconnected in the digital age? Though online access allows for more availability, Muñoz concludes there’s “reduced interaction” that “has greatly affected students’ relationship” between both teachers and peers (Muñoz). The lack of face to face social interaction further contributed to the pre-existing divide students experience due to the normalized pridefulness I mentioned previously. Hence why I believe social media is a massive contributor to a rise in individualism.
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There are several other facets of this issue that are very much worth exploring. Even within just the parameters of social media, I suggest exploring how social platforms pedestal individuals above others within their virtual communities; It represents a pipeline that begins with individual expression and applies pridefulness or some other narcissistic tendency that transforms individuality into individualism. Today around 20% of people experience loneliness to an extreme extent (Ross), even though we live in the digital age and are supposed to be more connected than ever. Social media cannot solve shame that drives people apart, it just inflates it into pride and deepens the chasm. Again, this is one facet under the large umbrella of individualism, and you’ll find that many of these characteristics and traits are deeply ingrained in America’s overarching identity. Diagnosing individualism in these characteristics will counteract isolation and allow for more people to connect and share ideas, without having to sacrifice their individual expression.