I agree we are all interdependent and no man is an island. The paradoxical thing is that what makes humanity special is that everyone is unique, we are all individuals with our own opinions, and if we were all part of a monoculture then we wouldn’t have much of a culture at all.
When times are tough (as this author is unfortunately going through) your support networks are crucial. Family, friends, and (if you have it) your faith in god. This is earned however - if you have lived a miserly, unhappy life then don’t be surprised that few show up when you are in need. You need to show reciprocity and be a good brother, friend, and community member when times are good as well.
I don’t discount how hyper important the individual is - it’s extremely hard and isolating to raise your hand in class, publish a contrarian idea, start a business, ask someone on a date, be a stand up comedian, write and perform music, and all manner of things that you yourself must get the courage to do. And these actions are what move society forwards most.
There doesn’t have to be a dividing wall between the individual and the community. You grow your support network by watering it like a garden, weeding out the bad plants, protecting it from poor weather. You have that as your base upon which to build towering castles.
I agree with a lot of what you said - that individuality is what drives us forward. But, in my view, acceptance of individuals and their damn unpopular opinions is exactly what is under attack.
The last 2 or 3 years were not a great time for the individual. The 'community' was stampeding, morality and freedom of choice went out of the window, and it didn't matter who got hurt. Everyone needed to do what they were told.
So, what I'm hearing is 'fine words' but these seem to go out of the window, when the s** appears to hit the fan.
Ultimately - this is a question of authority. Are you your own authority, or do experts (political, judicial, scientific, etc) tell you what to do?
> The last 2 or 3 years were not a great time for the individual. The 'community' was stampeding, morality and freedom of choice went out of the window, and it didn't matter who got hurt. Everyone needed to do what they were told.
If you think the last few years were bad for individualism, see the Salem witch trials or McCarthyism. We used to punish people with unpopular opinions by literally burning them at the stake at worst and ruining their livelihoods at best. Before that we had excommunication from the Church which was cancel culture on hypersteroids.
Nonconformity to the cultural zeitgeist is more acceptable now than it has ever been.
You don't have to go back that far, just try being gay prior to the 00s (or in many parts of the world today), or trans today.
You'll see very quickly how the desire of the community to not think icky thoughts will happily run roughshod over the individual. Hell, SCOTUS recently signaled that it's looking to do just that.
> Nonconformity to the cultural zeitgeist is more acceptable now than it has ever been.
Until covid it looked to be true yet they reached to the same tools without a second thought
But it is true in that it turns around more quickly - it only took two years to understand the absurdity of COVID measures from mandatory masking to indoor lockdowns and vaccine passports - in the past that would have taken 50 years
but maybe what you see is what you are made to see
the constant harping and relentless barrage of information that every major storm, landslide or flood "could have been" caused by humanity itself
yes we should be more careful and we are - and nature is much better shape than years ago - think about the massive deforestation in Pennsylvania at the turn of century, it was a barren wasteland, today it is 70% forested with millions of acres of unbroken forests
yet none of that good news is ever presented, it is always about things at the brink
I agree and would go so far as to say both individualism and looking out for your community (extending from the family unit to beyond) are crucial. I find the black-and-white rhetoric surrounding this to be dismaying. I'm not surprised that Socialist types are openly hostile to fostering individualism, though.
I am always puzzled (yet not puzzled) that someone would frame what this piece seems to be about in terms of their own personal theology. Everything in this beautifully written piece rings true to me, and yet somehow the connection to Christianity, either as a source of that truth or as an expression of it, feels forced.
You don't need to be a Christian to have had the author's experiences and desires, and you don't need to be a Christian to share an understanding of "the way forward".
I remain puzzled about what precisely the author believes Christianity itself brings to the questions and life situations she is writing about, above and beyond what the simple act of being a self-aware human can.
> I remain puzzled about what precisely the author believes Christianity itself brings to the questions and life situations she is writing about, above and beyond what the simple act of being a self-aware human can.
I interpreted this essay as largely about the bonds that form within a tightly knit community, as well as how this larger community can support, enrich, and - ultimately - outlast the individual members.
For the author of this article, this social fabric happens to be constructed out of a shared religious faith, and I think this faith is essential to her essay.
I (an avowed atheist) would suggest that the secular world has failed to present reasonable alternatives to this (positive) aspect of such communities. I could never share the religious beliefs that these people have, but I remain ever envious of their sense of kinship which transcends both blood lines and geography.
In my own life I find myself sharing articles with many contacts in my phone. Sometimes 10-15 people at a time. I don’t know if this acts as a means to create a facsimile of the community the author alludes. If my sharing articles is a thrust towards crafting community, it is a paltry comparison to the type you and I envy.
I fail to see how the secular world has failed to present a reasonable alternative. For several reasons.
One, it isn't like Christianity is the dominant religious option on the planet. It has a particular dominance in much of "the west," but it is quite new on the planet and is not a clear example of just having a positive impact.
Specifically, as much as it can be seen as giving a positive aspect of successful communities, the tension between it and other religious offerings really throws that idea a huge curve ball. This is completely ignoring a lot of the "forced" re-educations and conversions that have happened to get where we are.
To directly state what the secular world has offered, separating government from religion is a big one. It is very sad to see the steps getting lost in that direction.
Their frame, their world view is based or heavily influenced by their faith, which drives their decisions, comments, dispositions, and this article of self-expression.
It reads like you are stating that their personal, self-expression does not require their own world view, therefore it should have been left out.
Do I read your note correctly?
If so, I disagree. Yes, the whole article could have been written in a few paragraphs. In my opinion, it would have been dull, lack nuance, and failed to color-in the emotions she felt.
I grew up under the thumb of Christianity; the form that only thinly veils their contempt for most of the world, and disguises hate as piety. I mention this because it absolutely colors my view of that community, and I want to acknowledge that up front.
With that said, what always struck me as odd is that Christians seem to believe Christianity is the source of their desire (and all desire) to do good. The source of morality, good will, selflessness, personal sacrifice, etc.
When I escaped from the bubble, the first thing that hit me like a train was that I saw all of these qualities - often in an even purer form - in people from all walks of life, including many atheists.
Over time, I came to realize/believe that these qualities are deep within humanity, and probably have a large impact on why humanity has progressed in a way that is unlike any other species alive today.
Religions are implementations of these underlying traits, not their source. It is for this reason that many religions share so many commonalities. They are invented by man, and stem from the same underlying realizations that many thinkers have had throughout history, spanning civilizations and geographies. And as man made concepts, they are just as susceptible to corruption and misuse as any organization.
With this framing in mind, I try to interpret the world views of religious folks much like I would a developer who centers their life around a particular language or development stack. There's often a lot of truth in what they believe, even if that truth is not unique to the particular implementation they chose.
The difference is that devs generally acknowledge that their path of choice is just a preference and not some absolute truth. Choosing Python over Ruby isn't going to send a person to hell, although you'll still find those "this is the only way" tendencies from the most devout.
I think I agree with the OP. I'm happy for folks that find comfort in the company they decide to keep. I am always confused by the idea that this is somehow the religion a person chooses that is the deciding factor.
Take the first callout, "I have always believed that one of the great arguments for being part of a collectivist Christian tradition is their willingness to do voluntary, gruelling manual labour and call it love." What about that actually requires the "Christian" part? And the odd implication that other collectivist traditions would not find a path to volunteering is... a little chilling to me.
I didn't want it to be shorter. I just think she could have explored all the same themes and told all the same anecdotes without any of them explicitly being connected to Christianity.
Except, perhaps, for the willingness of communitarian anabaptists to do hard work as a group, but even then, how much of that relates to their Christian faith and how much to their communitarian outlook (something they share with non-Christian groups).
That's a surprising comment. As a lifelong unflinching atheist who criticised the institution of marriage and thought that religion oppressed women, I wouldn't have said de Beauvoir provides much for Catholics to relate to. Unless you meant it as a joke, i.e. if more people read de Beauvoir, there'd be fewer Catholics. Could you elaborate?
As a non-religious person descended from Mennonites, I felt something strong when she said:
> I have always believed that one of the great arguments for being part of a collectivist Christian tradition is their willingness to do voluntary, gruelling manual labour and call it love.
However, I was disappointed that the piece concluded in an evangelical call to action, littered with evangelical buzzwords I've heard a hundred times:
> ... tremendous opportunity ... foster community ... in the midst of this fear of our own vulnerability ... Our neighbours ... needing language for the pain ... searching for meaning ... tell them the truth
As a transgender person, I know that the community they want to foster comes with way too many conditions.
> We add and subtract for radiators and replacement cars, and when the dishwasher vomits all the soapy, dirty water onto the hardwood (only ever when we are on vacation), we don’t feel lucky, but we are.
What an absolutely delightful piece. Not typical HN fare but lovely.
Eh, internally perceived doomed societies sparked some of the worst world wars we know. The nazis were out of fertilizer, the japanese out of everything and the great game of empires made only autarky seem as a viable option.
Thus began the great butcheries between the upstarts and latecomers, and the established players that was WW1 and WW2. Three cheers for the providers of fertilizers, untaxed international trade and the atomic bomb, keeping the peace.
They do look awfully pale and thin on those old photos for a reason. So to not struggle against a caving in roof, is the attempt to return to the old state of the world, which was horrible.
This is not a viable philosophic position for somebody wielding any power to affect change.
I'm going to be a contrarian here, but I felt really annoyed reading this piece about an extremely privileged person, living in a privileged country, with an expensive education, holding a prestigious job at a famous journal listing her woes, while exposing how high-cultured she is by name dropping Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir and de Toqueville... meanwhile people freeze in Ukraine [1] and get killed and raped in their own home in Port-au-Prince [2].
Yes, you can accuse me of what-about-ism. I still think and have always thought that while one's very allowed to gaze back at themselves, it is better done in private or amongst friends. Doing so in public never elegant, IMO.
It's like you didn't read the article, and only saw the parts about Christianity, and bounced back here to complain about it. Religion is but the least part of this, the larger focus is on community and how important that truly is.
Also, why all the assumptions and anger about the cancer diagnosis? That is also the least part of it. You don't need to know the deep details to reluctantly agree with their doctor in order to get context for the rest of the tale.
For what it's worth, I'm an athiest as well, and much like many things that do not perfectly describe me, I can still find value in this if I stretch my imagination a bit. Religious people have not cornered the market on community, they just seem to be one of the last bastions of it in North America, where our individuality tends to take the forefront.
But much as this is, as the author points out, an opportunity for Christians to lead by example and display the benefits and values of community, it's an opportunity for the rest of us to espouse the same, just from a secular point of view. There's real benefits to be gained there.
When times are tough (as this author is unfortunately going through) your support networks are crucial. Family, friends, and (if you have it) your faith in god. This is earned however - if you have lived a miserly, unhappy life then don’t be surprised that few show up when you are in need. You need to show reciprocity and be a good brother, friend, and community member when times are good as well.
I don’t discount how hyper important the individual is - it’s extremely hard and isolating to raise your hand in class, publish a contrarian idea, start a business, ask someone on a date, be a stand up comedian, write and perform music, and all manner of things that you yourself must get the courage to do. And these actions are what move society forwards most.
There doesn’t have to be a dividing wall between the individual and the community. You grow your support network by watering it like a garden, weeding out the bad plants, protecting it from poor weather. You have that as your base upon which to build towering castles.