Collectively Learned Individualism

“Be all that you can be.” – US Army

From the most powerful military in the world, massive corporations, and even children’s television networks, we receive the same conspicuous message, “YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL”. On the surface, this does not seem so odd – but we must examine the inconspicuous intentions of this message’s perpetrators. In nearly all realms of North American society individualist ideology is perpetuated, and we presently see how recent technological developments have given online advertising corporations the power to collect millions of individuals’ web-browsing behavior. This newfound power has allowed “individualization” to reach a new extreme.

If my education in the United States taught me one thing it is that individuals drive social change. The Civil Rights Movement was successful because of Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1930s, the multitude of beneficial government programs (such as the New Deal, Social Security, the 8 hour work day, etc.) were instituted because the benevolent president Franklin D. Roosevelt felt morally obliged to alleviate some of the harsh conditions workers had to endure. “Virtuous individuals are responsible for social progress” – this is the first decree of individualization.

This message is a complete deception. It was only through continuous collective action that the government instituted these programs. FDR would not have made these concessions to the working class were it not for the hundreds of thousands of workers who consistently took to the streets to protest against their vile socio-economic conditions. Civil Rights legislation would not have passed without the hundreds of thousands of people who took part in everyday actions, protests, riots, and boycotts against a racist state. In fact, the entire history of the post-industrial revolution labor movement in the US is filled with violent class warfare in which only after prolonged collective struggle would the workers get some concessions (Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” is incredibly informative on this subject).

“Have it your way!” – Burger King

Thus, it is clear why individualism is so highly endorsed: the government does not want people to realize their collective power; it neither wants to lose control nor make concessions. In the cases that collective power is realized and harnessed by the people, the government makes minimal concessions until the movement’s enthusiasm dies down to a harmless level. In this sense, it is clear why capitalist enterprises also espouse individualism: unions (social bodies that harness the collective power of workers) threaten their power (and profits). Thus, the capitalists claim that unions will limit your individual betterment and ability to climb up the ranks of the corporation. (I experienced this firsthand when I worked at a grocery store in high school which required new employees to watch a 30-minute video about why unions are bad.)

In the information age, individualism is not only maintained for the suppression of workers’ collective power, but also for the exploitation of people’s collectively held – but individually realized – consuming power. Advertising agencies have appropriated the power of behavioral targeting to profile individual internet users. The programs responsible for this, called “trackers”, use (as I have learned in my Artificial Intelligence class) extensive probabilistic data structures that track every click you’ve made, and then, given that you made all of these clicks, calculate the probability that you will click on item X based on the tendencies of other users who have similar browsing profiles. The unsuspecting internet user may have come to realize a recent trend – the advertisements and articles they are presented are highly related to the website content they peruse, and thus appeal to their interests. (If you are not fond of being constantly targeted and manipulated by advertising agencies you should download these two (free) browser add-ons: AdBlock Plus – to block advertisements – and Ghostery, which shows you all of the trackers on a website and blocks them from acquiring your data). Unsurprisingly, online marketplaces tend to have dozens of trackers, but so do news, gaming, and even dictionary websites.

With this consistent individualization – the constant message of “BE YOURSELF AND BUY X” where the advertiser’s choice of X will be the most tempting thing they are capable of computing, how will we notice the next so-called “virtuous individual” who will initiate social change? If they are noticed, we certainly won’t be able to devote a significant amount of time to their cause – there is always a new article to read, a new product to buy, a new experience to have; but of course we must not forget to go to work every day and pay our bills.

“Nick Jr. is Just for Me!” – Nick Jr.

In our silent passivity – our endless yearning and patience for the much-needed driver of social change – we have become restless. Many people thought that Obama would be this individual, yet he fulfilled barely any of his promises and has actually created an even more repressive corporate-government power structure than Bush. The people have thus become either demoralized or enraged at his betrayal. The recent riots and protests in Ferguson, the growing $15-an-hour fast food workers strike movement, Occupy Wall Street, People’s Climate March, and the current anti-austerity movement in Quebec all show that people are beginning to re-recognize their collective power. The people will collectively decide who harnesses this power: Will the corporations diffuse it into a consumerist ploy by selling the coolest anti-climate change t-shirts? Will the democratic process devolve it into slow, bureaucratic reformism? Or will we change the world? An individual certainly won’t.