Comments on: The Cult of Individualism and the Desolation of the Earth

By: Sublimate « Eros Philia Agape

Sublimate « Eros Philia Agape — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:17:25 +0000

[...] Dave posted an article over the weekend inspired by an email from a friend on Second Life. She writes of the “cult of individualism” in western culture and how that factor is either overlooked, or held up as a benchmark in the efforts to build community. And that individualism stands directly in the way of community building. [...]

By: John Barleycorn

John Barleycorn — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:30:56 +0000

thank you dave pollard and all the good folks who have shared their individual thoughts about these issues. my personal favorite is #15 by Vincent. It is deeply rooted in our American psyche that “action” is the final arena of choice after thinking and writing. Vincent recommends that doing something is far better than splitting hairs about the right approach. We do need a paradigm of where we want to go. We need specifics of the kind of society and the kind of infrastructure that we need to be working on. We need images of what we want to create. Multiple choice is always easier than fill-in the blank. America is about what works. Nevermind that our older visions have left out some key ingredients. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We need to take the best of what we have and add the components that make it more functional. A lot of this work has already been done by people like Stewart Brand (“the world Earth Catalogue” and “the co-evolution quarterly”) and many others who have focused on whole systems.
Everything starts with what you regard as Holy.

By: Dick

Dick — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:24:37 +0000

The enlightened self-interest element that is fundamental to all mutualist movements has never been more urgent a prerequisite to future social organisation. The bleak and reductive picture represented by comment 15. only serves to underpin this.

My experience of mutual action is within schools – notably schools constituted ideologically and practically to encourage, nurture and implement a sense of shared social responsibility within which the individual experiences his/her interests as inextricably contained within the health of the community. Check out Summerhill, St Christopher and Frensham Heights schools on my sidebar. Not perfect examples, by any means, but much further round the mutualism-through-action spectrum than most.

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Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:00:35 +0000

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By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:26:01 +0000

Wait a minute when i read this it looks like the world is dead which is actually not the case. I see a lot of people criticizing all the world and the society and meeting on this kind of websites where we can see all the misery of the world BUT surprinsingly … NOT ANY CONCRETE PLAN or action to take. Believing that something is going to change just by chatting about stuff is a nonsense. Technology is not to blame technology as nature is something neutral. So is science. Neutral . How many of you on this blog will stop using their computers tomorrow because it consumes oil and coal ? Who is going to do it first ?
Individualism is natural when we are not evolving in tribes. And let me tell you sth it isnt possible to make a “world-ethic-so-everyone-can-stick-to-it” these kind of ideas are called totalitarism and are nonsense especially when talking about millions of people. How many of you are studying chemistry and electricity here ? I do and let me tell you somthing we have alternative using science and it cost money okay ? You can now go and buy solar panels and so on and get a small electric car and electric water boiler and so on. It cost money thats right and let me tell you somthing studying science costs more than writting on a blog so I worked for years to be able to get something and you now what ? One day I’ll be able to be involved in some long-term project. Everytime I go out I hear people talking about all the baaaad system and all the baaad society and people and they don’t watch themselves just doing what they want but opening their mouth to say shit. I found money to build 3 schools in africa and 1 in Asia that means finding 40’000 dollars to run these places and so on. INSTEAD OF WRITING GO AND ACT. It is really not a question of yourself and your society it is a question of your acts. You now you can spend ur life whinning and blaming others for what you are not doing. But let me tell you somthing it involves PAIN for yourselfyou understand ? PAIN and blood as Churchill said. You going to be cheated, robbed, bluffed, stuffs are not going to work as you think and you’ll have to restart again and again. People will laugh at you okay ? But in the end it doesn’t matter. Stop reading philosophy it is just nonsense. Philosophers have always been people without any sense of purpose. You can spend your life reading philosophy and liking it because it is “cool” but life is not “cool” and when i see people claiming that they own the truth and have the solutions for everybody and pissed of and I think I can see what they looks like through my screen.

Now instead of posting stupid stuff and willing to change the world (which is impossible) start thinking what kind of action can I do (yes DO) to improve 1 problem that bother me. You can all speak english here so you can start to go to foreign communities in your country and help them learn english. That is one idea for you instead of running these stupids texts.

May somebody bless you. Don’t forget that today, now, life is a war for lot lot of people. A war for finding something to eat okay. And you are in this war but your so far away from the battlefields that you don’t even touch a bit of what life is. You surely spend days chatting on internet, making false friends on twitter and so one, listen to some stupids guru or reading philosophy or personal developnment. You must GROW! and growing is suffering i repeat but as Marcel Proust once said )because i was reading shit all the time like bloggers) we’re only learning when suffering and the farther I go in life and the farther I give him credit.

And people in asia are far more selfish than us europeans or us citizens. Life is not Krishnamurti or I don’t know what other new-age hippie shit. Life is about eating and trying to live as long as possible. Now you probably start to feel bad because you’re hesitating ? who to thrust ? But if you hesitate and feel incomfortable it is maybe because you now know who is right and who is not. So thighten your seatbelt and get involve in acting. The wolrd was here before you he doesn’t ask you anything anything. You can choose to give something or you can read stupid things all day long and go to bed without worries. Stop thinking about all the stupidity you see and start thinking about the good you can put in practise. Travel to asia if you want to see the nirvana and let me tell you your going to be baaadly disappointed. Caus Asia (Ive been in Thailand 6month and India 6 month) is rally not what you think. It is streets filled with rats and shit everywhere cause there are not so much restroom. People commit suicide very often and are as bad as “western” people when it comes to money. BUT you can choose to help the one who didnt asked to live this shit and thrust me ther is still work to do. Everyday ! U can learn logistics and go help them improve their campment You can work for a bank involved in microcredit (U just need to learn one language), You can study microbiology and learn how to sterilize stuffs and so on intead of just chatting like chickens. And forget philosophy and psychology if you got problems with you conscience its maybe because you are not acting.$

Cyacya

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:07:17 +0000

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By: Don Vande Krol

Don Vande Krol — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:31:37 +0000

As soon as I begin thinking about the reasons for our alienation from one another and from nature, my thinking becomes crowded and I begin to realize how complex the issues are. As a Process thinker following A.N. Whitehead’s “Philosophy of Organism”, I tend to put most of the blame on modern science and a false belief in substances (stuff which needs nothing other than itself in order to exist – including such ‘things’ as selves, atoms, chairs and rocks). However, it may be that the primary reason for alienation has to do with the emotional and psychological injuries we receive from others and from nature as we grow up. Regardless of the causes, it is obvious that something is sick and broken.
My small contribution toward the healing of this broken world has been to invite and then to create a space in our home for our neighbors to gather once a week. The results have been… miraculous? I emphasized for the start that neighbors are not necessarily “like-minded” – the only thing we may have in common is the desire to be in a community where members can experience a sharing of life. Healing and love, acts of kindness, and a growing sense of connection to one another and our shared environment begin with simply listening as each of us answers in turn, the unspoken question, “How ya doing?”.
If it wasn’t for something Dave wrote (“the best way to begin is to begin”), I might have remained stuck in a “paralysis of analysis”. My vision is for a network of neighborhood gatherings which, I believe, have the potential to transform the world. We are experiencing the power of love in transforming our neighborhood. If what we are doing here in our neighborhood could be duplicated across the world, perhaps there we could have reason to hope.

Don

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:58:31 +0000

“the self must be subsumed to the group”

Hmmm, got me thinking. I think it’s more about whether you “know who you are” or not or “what values-base do I come from”? I think (vast generality alert) people in Europe are much more community and group-mind oriented than North Americans … for a range of reasons, some of it having to do with ancient traditions, some of it having to do with shared experiences over the last 100 or so years.
.
Off to think about this some more..

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:52:32 +0000

” It must be a community that is not composed of merely “like-minded individuals” who put great stock in being “free spirits,” but of people committed to a single ideal, joined in a community whose purpose is greater than the whims or desires of its individual constituents. And it must be based upon a set of values that is self-propagating, popular and enticing to the point that it sells itself, as we simply don’t have time for a slow-growing, grassroots movement. It must be framed in such a way that it catches on like a fad, stays in place as unperturbedly as anything written by Beethoven, and is ultimately as universally known as shave-and-a-haircut. If we can do all of this in the narrowing window of opportunity we have available, we will have made a difference.

This statement above reminds me that a lot of people share some core beliefs about Christmas, and hence act accordingly (and often differently that they do the other 364 days of the year) on that day. It’s a movement, built around an idea and with shared values. And, it’s for the kids, to boot !

Let’s have Christmas all year long.

By: Ria Baeck

Ria Baeck — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:13:45 +0000

Thanks for many of your blog posts Dave. Regarding this one I always wonder why ‘others’ have to be convinced; why we always have to think if ‘they’ are going to do what we think is right… IF the world, if life is ONE then what I do – being my full self, following my life’s calling – has an influence. Full stop. That seems to be the only thing that I can do. Then I have to deal with this constraint, that is somehow painful…
And in my experience there is a place – beyond I and we – where we can really meet! (like th eintentional communities) If everyone is BEING who they really are, and if we are in real CONNECTION to one another there seems te be a natural flow of being WE.
See the video’s of Meg Wheatley ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM9THiUOpRw&feature=PlayList&p=57D3F5FDE5856188&index=0 ) read the latest book of Harrison Owen, Wave Riders…
Thanks a lot!