I'm Convinced: Individualism is Killing Us
This is not breaking news.
Saying the words, “America is an individualistic society,” is like saying “water is wet.” Yeah, we know. This is not breaking news. American society does not function without its populace completely buying into the belief that individualism is the one right way to function as a human.
Most of us buy into this belief — even those of us who have begun to unpack the harmful cultural standards we have normalized. I will be the first to admit that I still buy into individualism. It is often in ways that are so engrained into my brainwaves that I do not recognize them unless I am doing deep, intentional inner divesting work.
My buy-in to individualism affects my parenting as I default to teaching my children how to rely on themselves before seeking help, often having to backtrack my actions and re-teach concepts from a decolonized, communal mindset. Not to mention, I still shame myself for being unable to perfectly handle every challenge, scream, tantrum, and homeschool lesson plan with grace and flawlessness even though I know that is beyond human capability. My buy-in to individualism affects my partnership with my husband, as I sometimes allow guilt to set in when I feel like I’m relying on him for too much. “I should be doing this myself,” my inner critic will whisper. I then go into “I can do bad all by myself” supermom mode to compensate for my shame in exposing my weakness. My buy-in to individualism affects my friendships — I rarely reach out to friends to express a need for help or support, putting myself in the position to only serve as help and support for them when they need it. What I don’t notice, however, is resentment brewing within me. Before I know it, my responses become shorter and my distance further, requiring me to do damage control because I permitted my dysfunctional patterns to emerge. And, it affects my work. As I sit here and write this article, I have internally shamed myself for being unable to perfectly execute articles, content, and every other aspect of being a self-employed writer without something slipping through the cracks. I know I’m a part-time writer and full-time homeschooling mother, yet I expect myself to perform as if I have full-time hours for both roles.
Once again, I’ve allowed myself to reach individualism burnout.
You would think it would be easy for someone who has devoted her life’s work to studying the effects of white supremacy culture on our personhood to do a one-and-done divestment from its harmful norms. I know individualism well. I see it everywhere. I see it on social media when comment sections are filled with hateful critiques of one’s humanity. I see it in the media, especially with the celebrity culture that we have come to idolize as their success is advertised as individualism rather than the result of many privileges and resources. I see it in the challenges my loved ones are facing, whether it be at the workplace or a mental health battle that almost always leads to the whispered phrase, “I’m not enough.” And, I see it in myself, as I wrestle with daily shame that intensifies under the pressure to be the perfect wife, mother, friend, and overall human without ever admitting that I need help.
Yet, as in tune as I have become with individualism, it is the characteristic of white supremacy culture that is the most difficult for me to escape. I still fall into the trap of believing that the more I carry by myself, the more worthy I am. Or, the less of a burden I am. The truth is that society sells us this lie that our individualism serves as a top qualifier for our moral superiority so that it can force individualism through its policies and systems without our questioning it. That is how systemic white supremacy and cultural white supremacy work. The systems are crafted with the utmost intention to maintain a social, political, and behavioral hierarchy. The culture becomes the byproduct of those systems and exists to condition us into believing that these systems make sense.
Individualism resonates so deeply with us that community often seems uncomfortable, insufferable, and intolerable. We resist asking for help — defaulting to self-isolation when we are undergoing our deepest hardships. We make jokes on social media about the relief we feel when a friend cancels a plan or how we would rather hang out with our plants than people. We no longer feel safe enough to ring a neighbor’s doorbell to borrow some sugar. These are minor examples of how we have grown uncomfortable with each other and normalized a culture of complete self-reliance and isolation. I also want to make sure I don’t ignore other factors at play with these examples, such as neurodivergence, trauma, and the distrust we have for one another in our current cultural climate. However, that speaks even further to my point. In an individualistic society, we do not make room for those whose neurodivergence makes interactions difficult for them, because we are also a society steeped in ableism — both isms feeding each other. In our individualistic society, mental health is viewed as criminal and the fault of one’s own choices or behaviors rather than deficiencies the individual did not choose. We are a society that does not value people, and as a result, we are not safe for one another. I’d argue that this is not a recent phenomenon.
If our individualism were merely about how we socialize in our society, it would have the potential to be an easier fix. I would have probably opted for a different title than “Individualism is Killing Us.” Perhaps something a little less…extreme. Individualism is not just about how we socialize and interact with one another. It is not simply about our fear of reaching out for help and the lack of community we experience in our neighborhoods. This is about a moral that is the backbone of our society. Individualism is how society is able to sell the lies it sells. By conditioning us all to believe that every single factor of our lives is up to our individual responsibility, it takes the ownness off of societal leadership to be of any support to the people. It allows society to purposefully place barriers in our way while gaslighting us when we say, “Hey, I think these barriers have something to do with the difficulties I am facing.” “No,” society says. “That can’t be it. If you just work hard enough, you’ll be fine. You’ll be perfect.”
We internalize this gaslighting. “It must be my fault,” we tell ourselves when it seems as if all of our efforts are in vain. This goes for anything — health challenges, workplace shortcomings, educational difficulties, or the daunting overwhelm of daily life tasks. If our health isn’t in tip-top shape, it’s because we aren’t getting it right. We aren’t walking 10,000 steps a day, following a rigorous strength training program without missing a beat, and balancing our hormones correctly. “Your health is solely your responsibility,” says society. Never mind the factors we have zero control over, like whether we live in a food desert, what our paychecks can or cannot afford, climate changes and air pollutants we did not ask for, or various genetic conditions we could be unknowingly pre-dispositioned to. Never mind the fact that those who seem to be the picture of health usually have access to services undisclosed to the public, such as cosmetic procedures, nutritionists, and private trainers. We live in a constant state of comparison to that person we believe did it “all by themselves,” and then berate ourselves when we can’t do the same. Not to mention, those pictures and videos we are comparing ourselves to are usually highly edited to reveal an idyllic perfection that doesn’t truly exist.
I may have viered off on tangeant of only health-related examples, but you can apply these examples to every area society expects you to excell at, which happens to be all of them. Your job status, your educational status, your ability to keep every plate in your life spinning in the air without crashing…in this society, any inability to succeed or keep a plate spinning in the air is on you and you alone. Should you let a plate fall, you have failed. Should you need help to keep a plate spinning, you have failed. Should you receive access to keep a plate spinning that society denies to most everyone else, you are berated for receiving that access, because, once again, you should have done it yourself. And, when you inevitably let a plate fall because you’re…oh…human…internal shame becomes your dominant language.
Even if we have a knowing that we face differing barriers in society that affect our abilities and “accomplishments,” that doesn’t stop us from succumbing to the guilt we feel when we can’t seem to achieve what society says we should achieve if we just “worked hard enough.” For instance, I know that I have physiological barriers that prohibit my having that perfect gym body that social media tells me I’ll have if I “just did these 17 things,” yet I still internally shame myself for my efforts not making me look exactly like the girl who told me to do the 17 things. I know that I have systemic, familial, and time barriers that prevent me from doing all 17 things, yet I berate myself for only managing to do 10 of them. Not only is this contributing immensely to the voice of my inner critic, and thus destroying my self-worth, but the behavior and thinking pattern itself is extremely disordered. Individualism forces us to become obsessed with ourselves and the constant need to achieve, improve, reach, master, or glow up in some way. The sheer joy of human existence is lost on us. We cannot afford to indulge in our humanity while fearing missed opportunities, failing to utilize time productively, or failing to achieve our goals. We live in a constant state of fear that a moment of rest or an exhale of breath will be the moment that we fail. We expect ourselves to operate at a level akin to a robot because, again, our conditioning is such that every single outcome in our lives relies solely on ourselves.
“Every man for himself,” is our mantra and we believe it to our core. Not only does it serve as the mission statement for which we live our lives, but it serves as justification for our hatred of one another. See, if we had to do it by ourselves, so should they. Right? This is how the system continues to run. Not only does this belief continue to influence the way we govern, but it is the basis for how we treat each other. We don’t see the humanity in those around us. We don’t extend our hand to those whose hands are begging for help because hands were never extended to us when we were begging. We spew hatred and judgment toward one another for everything society tells us to view as an individual failure.
Humanity was never supposed to live this way. Just look at the history of human civilization and the various cultures around the globe — individualism is a western, and more specifically, American phenomenon. And, I beleive, it’s killing us. It is crushing our self-worth. It is dehumanizing us. The evidence is right in front of us.
It is my belief that we don’t have to allow this to be our reality any longer. We can break up with individualism. We can fight the status quo. I know it can feel hopeless when we live in a society that is so deeply entrenched in the foundation it was built upon. It feels impossible to dismantle something that is so solid and firm in it’s operation and beliefs. But, just as everything in our society and culture is a construct, it can slowly and intentionally be dismantled. It begins right here. It begins with reading articles like this one and learning about the charactertistics society has normalized that are causing more harm than good. It begins with resisting thought patterns, behaviors, and actions that continue to perpetuate these norms. It begins with asking your neighbor for the sugar and showing up at your friend’s doorstep when they are hurting. It begins with counteracting every shame-filled voice of your inner critic with the truth about indvidualism and affirmations that honor your humanity.
Yes, I’m speaking to myself, too. Individualism is incredibly challenging to rid ourselves from as it is a norm we have been conditioned to default to. However, now that we see it, we can begin to slowly dismantle it — first within ourselves, then our communities, and then our society at-large. It will take daily effort and a lot of grace. It will not be a one-and-done deal as I have demonstrated with my personal examples. But, even when you catch yourself slipping back into old thought patterns and behaviors, you can now name it, call out it’s harm, and know where it comes from. The ability to do just that is the key to unlocking your liberation.
Individualism may be killing us now, but we don’t have to let it. We can take our power back.