I thought about you when I read this question from a 19 year old member on our Forum.
What do you think about this? Does it ever seem this way to you when going about your daily life?
From the OP: "So I just pseudo finished a book my Psychology professor wrote called "Nations of One" and it was all about the notion of the evolution of hyper-individualism (HI) in the late 20th and 21st centuries. HI is defined exactly how it sounds, an excessive amount of individualism. But this individualism was brought about by the current economic system that says if you have money, you can be happy. The saying "greed is good" has become our motto in a sense.
She believes that this has lead to an immense feeling of loneliness and emptiness in our lives. For some of the HI individuals, they believe that they are what they consume. For developed HI individuals, it is about finding your true self while trying to balance the economic part of our lives, the stage that many of us are at now.
People consume to fill a vacuum. Love, trust, truth, art, music and written language have taken a backseat to money and what it can do for us.
She also made the point that when many people are looking for relationships, they look for what the other person can do for them only, a very economic point of view. "
Well, actually I have a couple of thoughts on the topic.
First, in reaction to the last point about how people are taking a 'me first' view of relationships... I noticed this really heavily in Americas when I lived overseas or traveled a lot. Americans are very much about getting their own first - then if there's enough left over for the other guy too, well that's all well and good, but at least I got mine. That mindset is missing in a lot of other places that I've been. It's not about love relationships either, it's about all relationships... Americans are greedy and self-absorbed.
It may well be that other cultures (and I should mention that I'm really only thinking of western Europe, like Finland and The Netherlands, it's not like I've spent any time in the far east or South America or whatever) have gotten worse in this way than they used to be, I don't know about that.
But I can tell you when you come back to the States after an extended stay somewhere else, it's palpable.
The other thought is something I've believed for a long, long time. Yes, we have gotten into a HI mode, but I don't believe it's brought on by wealth or comfort, I believe it's brought on by technology.
For our entire existence man has been dependent on his neighbors and his family for support of all kinds, and now- put simply - we're not. We can pick up the telephone and have medical help, AAA, or groceries delivered to us. We can go on the internet and order literally anything, chat with people the world over, find any information. Worse come to worst, we can get in our powerful and unbelievably reliable cars and get anywhere (my kids have never played with the other kids on our street - all their school friends are from the other end of the school district, nearly 20 miles away. How did they manage that? Everyone has a car.) There's almost no need for neighbors at all.
We have absolutely enabled HI, and it will not stop. That's not a condemnation of technology by the way, for it has obviously also enriched and assisted our lives in just as innumerable and pervasive ways. It's just the facts, ma'am.
hwell
