Imaginary Individualism

While David Brooks often writes thoughtful articles, his recent NYT article, "What Our Words Tell Us" was somewhat disappointing in that the usual complaints against "rising individualism" just don't ring true, for me. Unfortunately, such arguments have been voiced too many times over the years. Supposedly, as a society we become problematic because we are materialistic, greedy or otherwise thinking primarily of ourselves. In recent studies, here are some of the words which had apparently risen in use: personalized, self, standout, unique - as opposed to those which had declined: community, collective, tribe, share, united, band together, and common good.

Perhaps some of both categories have simply been adapted by the institutions which find them most useful, which would make them less spontaneous or meaningful in any circumstance. There's no need to pose these descriptions in such contrary terms. We do ourselves a disservice by making ourselves feel worse about them, instead of examining why in fact we find ourselves vulnerable to these tendencies and then striving to change those circumstances. What bothers me is that we have continued to chastise ourselves, for something which we really don't understand. Sometimes, accusations of rampant individualism on our parts can seem like a cruel joke, especially where people are trying to make up for other, perhaps more "noble" aspirations which seem totally out of reach. But, at the very least, criticism of rampant individualism certainly seems off the mark, as to the lives so many of us would prefer to live were it possible to do so.

We often give in to the (supposed) "individualism" of the material, because it appears as the primary rational option we have. But for many, it may not satisfy the individualism we really want: that is, to express our own voice, or our own "take" on life itself. Consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs for instance, which also suggests that if we are able to actualize higher aspirations and needs, those lower on the pyramid would not be so out of proportion in our lives. However, the higher needs have more to do with experiences rather than physical objects, which even the pyramid shows as less significant! Clearly it is primarily a reference point; but for the purposes of this blog, it nonetheless works better than the one it was replaced with (attachment theory in psychological studies), in part because of the economic references which show up in the Maslow pyramid. Those reference points provide clear possibilities as to what services - as a more integral part of economic life - might actually strive for.

Many are already familiar with Maslow's theory as opposed to attachment theory, which also attests to its usefulness in our consideration here. Oddly enough, the positive ramifications of individuality show up in Maslow's theory, whereas they scarcely make an appearance in the more familial replacement (surprising, given the degree to which psychology tried to overcome dysfunctional frameworks in recent decades), which also took aspects of economic life out of its assessment. What I want to do now is show one particular aspect how the basic economic activities mentioned in a recent post relates to issues in Maslow's theory. This correlation is particularly useful, as recent graduates grapple with the demand problem which has emerged for their skills, on the part of institutions which don't actually have room for their capacities. How might such knowledge use space be reimagined?

Recall from my earlier post (linked above) the five areas of economic activity: maintenance - building - creating - healing - understanding. The building discipline became the inadvertent default for a beginning point of economic activity, in that it relied upon actual product as the point of wealth transfer to the other points of activity. Because services (along with higher aspirations) had been seen as secondary (and occasionally even incidental), there was an overreliance on actual product and the environments we could make room for the products themselves. However, when we finally reacted to the excesses in this regard (liberal and conservative alike) that reaction inadvertently took the form of monetary policy austerity, in part because a) we don't yet know how to reconfigure our environments to adjust to today's realities, and b) we don't yet have structures in place that utilize time based services more efficiently, without the assistance of product which is separate from time.

The main takeaway in this post is simply that our individuality is more important than economic life in the twentieth century seemed to suggest. We utilized product creation extensively in the previous century because it made sense to do so. However, much of we actually desire in the present for our economic lives has changed, and the primary task of the moment is simply to determine what aspirations are most important to us as a society, before we try to move ahead. We have to stop telling ourselves that such aspirations are out of reach, especially as so many have tired of the material default setting. It helps to remember that our aspirations change, and what intrigues us also changes. Our economy can become more flexible to reflect our own need for change. One of the first steps is to find out what challenges us the most, and how to integrate that with the challenges others also experience. What we want most is to recapture a dynamic economy, one which accurately reflects our most important realities.