I is for Individual
Adopting a philosophy of radical individualism is the only way to save humanity from its own destruction
When you meet someone, what is the first thing you ask them?
Chances are you say, “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
You don’t ask about their religion, race, gender, or political camp. You simply want to know their name. Why? Because that is what best identifies them out of a room full of people.
This simple common courtesy that has been a part of social etiquette for millennia is a surprising example of the importance of philosophy, more specifically, the kind of philosophy one adopts as the basis for their life.
These days, the things society appears most concerned with when it comes to people are the most boring things about them: skin color, gender, political affiliation, etc. One set of people pits itself against another set of people. This angers another set of people who pit themselves against both of the other camps. This game of dominos keeps going on ad nauseam. And you know how that game works. After setting up all the pieces just so, it takes one flick of the fingers from the architect, and every single domino eventually falls down, regardless of where the pieces were standing.
Recognizing the dangers of this situation, certain figures have set up their own online communities to fight the collectivist mindset that is currently so en vogue. However, in doing so, these individuals begin committing the same mistakes as the very people they criticize.
This causes an incessant swinging of a pendulum from side to side, with no real solutions offered up to remedy the madness.
For instance, traditional roles for men and women have pretty much gone out the window these days. One group thinks the words “men'' and “women'' need to be completely redefined, while other groups define those two words right down to simplistic biblical, and at times incredibly archaic, terms.
I tend to stay out of these debates these days because in reality both sides are wrong.
It’s important to language and communication that we have objective definitions of words, including man and woman. What both sides do however is turn these simple words into entire purposes of being. From these definitions, every single thought, action, and intention from every person who is a man or woman stems from that singular characteristic.
It is an unpopular take, but identity politics is at the heart of both sides of this ridiculous debate.
Outliers
Famed (or infamous) psychologist Jordan Peterson talks about gender often. He has a word for men and women who don’t “fit the mold,” or who don’t fit the traditional archetypes of man and woman.
He calls these people outliers.
He doesn’t just use this term for “gender roles.” He uses it when talking about anyone who is a statistic that doesn't fall into the proper category of whatever study is being conducted by a scientific community at the time.
And while I have always worn the “outlier” cap, I had a fleeting thought the other day.
Isn’t everyone at some point or another in their lives an outlier?
And doesn’t this really make no one an outlier?
Or does this make everyone an outlier?
Depending on your philosophy, you’ll choose the first conclusion, or the second.
We are a data-driven world.
We are also supposedly a scientifically driven world.
But the problem with only listening to science, or only listening to data, is we take all anecdotes out of the equation.
When we do this, we take all individuality out of human experience. We take the human out of human experience and replace it with preconceived, near- predestined, life journeys that become “outliers” if they don’t follow the computer model’s plan.
I don’t know about you, but for me life hardly ever goes according to plan.
That’s why, amid a world with more information available than ever before, we feel lonely, forgotten, attacked, and misunderstood.
The human experience and scientific data can work well in tandem. But the latter is meant to serve the former, not the other way around. And scientific data will fail us every time until we learn that at the end of the day, the human experience really can’t be quantified.
The poignant lack of humanity in today’s world has caused even the simplest of things to be viewed as a political stance.
The carnivore diet is an example.
Humans have been eating meat since the beginning of time. However, the simple choice of whether you eat meat or not has become so polarizing, both champions of steak and champions of plant-based meals have become literal niche celebrities on social apps like Instagram.
This brings me to my next point. Progress is another aspect of society that declines when groupthink reins supreme.
Freedom of the Individual
America’s greatest accomplishments came from individualist, freedom-centered generations.
Take the airplane generation for example. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, America experienced a wave of grand invention and innovation.
This was prior to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (and the Income Tax), so our gold-backed money was stable and there was far more market freedom because the government didn’t have direct access to our earnings before we even did.
This bedrock of freedom fostered great minds. Despite insurmountable engineering obstacles, a rather (understandably) hesitant consumer base, and a bit of competition, The Wright Brothers ushered in a revolutionary mode of transportation. After a good deal of PR stunts, the American population finally realized what these inventors had given the world.
There’s a separate lesson in this that counterpunches the age-old saying, “The consumer is always right.” But that’s for another article.
This is just one example of many that shows what individuals are capable of in an environment that champions freedom of the individual, instead of mass submission to a cause, political party, or physical characteristic.
So many times, my choices in life have been viewed by people as a political statement. I did this, therefore I'm a republican. I did this, therefore I’m a feminist. I can be quite confusing to people who try to fit me into one of their suffocating boxes.
While some people are asking, “What is a woman?”, I continue to ask people, “What is your name?”
No matter what I’m labeled, I take the opportunity to point the person in the direction of a Voluntaryist thinker, generally Auberon Herbert for starters, so they understand I’m one of the few left who is a literal political orphan, and proudly so.
No Two Humans are the Same
We are not predestined clusters of cells whose outcomes are based on our most basic, boring characteristics like skin color, gender, or protein intake preference. We are sovereign individuals, each with our own unique universes inside of us, with the unlimited power of our minds hard at work shaping our futures.
No two humans are the same. That is one of the most beautiful things about the reality of the world.
I have a unique opportunity as an artist. People connect with me on a deep level regularly. Music expedites the process of breaking down barriers and fostering camaraderie. I often have deep conversations with people I’ve just met at my shows, and we chat about personal things they’ve often not even divulged to family members and friends. This is quite possibly my favorite thing about what I do.
Art and the advancement of freedom and individuality are tied together. Any attempted severing, like what is happening now in the music industry with blacklisting for wrongthink and political parroting, means the artist is commiting fraud against human nature, and so their art suffers as a consequence. That’s why so much of today’s music is terrible.
Art is the most spiritual rendering of the human experience. Play me even the most commercialized trivial pop song, and there’s an entire moral philosophy wrapped up inside of it.
As a creator, I see the individual that makes the human.
A Government’s Worst Nightmare
Until we turn to the philosophy of Individualism, and apply it to every thought, action, and interaction we have in our lives, culture, art, and people everywhere will continue to suffer.
Google would have you believe that Individualism is a philosophy centered around self-reliance and profit.
And while the first part is right, their attempts at demonizing a philosophy’s economic empowerment is hilarious.
On the one hand, it’s sad that there is a significant portion of younger generations who’ve been taught that financial success is evil. On the other hand, it’s funny Google is scared enough of this philosophy that it bastardizes its definition and what it stands for.
There is a reason political shills like Google are terrified.
A return to individuality means a return to not only humanity, but human nature itself.
That is a government’s worst nightmare.
Contrary to what many are taught by both the educational system and the entertainment system, human nature properly acted out exemplifies man’s unique desire to better himself and his surroundings. In turn, this betters the community he’s a part of, the family he fathers, and the friends he chooses.
For an economic treatise on the value of individualism, turn to Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations, one of the first works focusing on free market economics:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
The powers that be would have you think that success, fulfillment, self-reliance, and self-empowerment done your way is wrong.
I’ve learned over the years that when a political messenger says you’re wrong, that means you’re on the right track.
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Friedrich Nietzsche
Individualism is simply that, a return to the individual.
While people bicker on the internet over women’s roles and men’s supposed “toxic masculinity,” and continue to get constant dopamine hits by celebrating victimhood, and pit one “race” against the other, let’s not get caught up in this one big lie- that humans can be reduced to philosophical control groups.
Death by Hemlock
When Socrates was given the death penalty by his own government for spreading “misinformation,” he drank the toxic herb Hemlock to get the job done.
In our modern society, collectivist thinking is our Hemlock. It is a bitter, toxic force. If ingested, it has the potential to kill the humanity in even the most virtuous individual.
No matter how many times someone looks at you and sees nothing but a socio-economic standing, political cliche, skin color, nationality, or race, don’t return the insult and become a product of the philosophy you know is wrong.
Isn’t it interesting, that amid a world obsessed with conformity to even the most inconsequential things, the most revolutionary thing you can do right now is continue doing something humans have done for ages?
Simply continue to ask, “What’s your name?”
To some, it may seem ironic that in the philosophy of Individualism learning another person’s name is incredibly important. But once you learn the philosophy for what it truly is, you understand that it isn’t ironic at all.
Just make sure that before you ask someone their name, you learn, and remember, the unique purpose behind your own.
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Live rebelliously,
-Rebecca-
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