Saved by Keely Adler
Hope beyond individualism
‘most of human history was spent in hunter-gatherer communities. And in these kinds of communities today—there aren’t many of them—you find a degree of cooperativeness, an absence of alienation that is unheard of in modern society. To ignore our social heredity is a serious mistake. There is a human capacity for good-natured cooperation that is sim
... See moreJoe Lightfoot • A Collective Blooming: The Rise Of The Mutual Aid Community
Cultural individualism: In much of the West, the ideal is to be self-sufficient, private, and busy. That’s a hard attitude to build community on.
WHAT WE MAY lack is the sense of neighborliness. For me, the scariest thing about the last forty years, even more than the rising temperature, was the ascension of the libertarian idea that the individual matters far more than the society an individual inhabits. The New York Times called Ayn Rand (“altruism is incompatible with freedom”) the “novel
... See moreBill McKibben • The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened
The Problem: Heroic Individualism
Heroic individualism is an ongoing game of oneupmanship against both self and others, where measurable achievement is the main arbiter of success and self-worth, and where productivity often gets prioritized over people.
Heroic individualism is an ongoing game of oneupmanship against both self and others, where measurable achievement is the main arbiter of success and self-worth, and where productivity often gets prioritized over people.