Community Vs. Individualism

    I was talking with my sister and her husband the other day, and we hit on an idea that I hadn't thought about much before, so I wanted to share it here and get some other folks' thoughts.

    Have you ever thought about how, in America's more and more individualistic culture, there are a lot of people who all look really similar in the way they act and dress? Take a high school, for example: even to an uninitiated person like me who doesn't care much about school politics, when I was walking the halls of the high school, I still knew about which cliques different people belonged to based on how they dressed and acted. I couldn't have told you what the cliques were, but had you lined up a bunch of kids in the school I think I could have worked out with reasonable confidence which ones were in similar groups.

    My brother-in-law suggested that perhaps part of the reason why this is is because of the way we're taught to make friends. I've been working in a preschool classroom for my Practicum for the last two months, and when we did a lesson on friendship, we taught the kids to talk to each other and find common ground in their interests. From this early lesson to high school, kids are encouraged to find other people like them--same grade level (leading to a similar age), same interests (leading to solidarity in showing those interests in how they dress), same opinions. And then, once everyone is sorted into groups based on how similar they are to one another, we say, "Go be yourself! Don't be afraid to stand out!" One quote that I found hilarious when I ran into it in Brandon Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea was, "In short, Tress was a normal teenage girl. She knew this because the other girls often mentioned how they weren't like "everyone else," and after a while Tress figured that the group "everyone else" must include only her. The other girls were obviously right, as they all knew how to be unique--they were so good at it, in fact, that they did it together."

    In some ways, having a friend group with this kind of solidarity is a really good thing! It almost guarantees that there is someone who understands your life experience, and that's great! However, it can also create echo chambers where the only views and opinions we're exposed to are all those most similar to our own. In many ways, the best way to grow is by interacting with people who are very different from ourselves and trying to understand them. Whether we agree with them on everything or not, we can recognize what they bring to our community and forge friendships with them because their contributions are just as valuable as ours.

    Now, I'm a home schooled kid with relatively few social skills. I pretty much only talk to the people I'm in classes with, and have since I started taking my GEs in high school. I also wouldn't really call any of the people I've met at school friends--more like friendly acquaintances, who may one day be colleagues. I like them, I enjoy chatting with them, but I don't know them very well. My friends all the way through school were primarily my cousins, and once I left homeschool, I didn't make any friends from school. All this to say, I could have this entirely wrong, and I'd love your thoughts.

    I do have one other example, though. My fiancé got me into Magic: The Gathering. There is an online version in the form of a video game called Magic: The Gathering Arena, which is a lot of fun because it's free if you want it to be, and you don't have to spend any money to get cool new cards. Just by playing the game, you'll pick up all the new cards you'll need to build new decks and have some fun.

    There's a game mechanic in MTGA where you can spend in-game gold and buy cosmetics. There are quite a few options, from different characters to represent you in-game to pets you can buy to give you moral support while you're playing. Each month, there's a new "play season," and each play season comes with new and unique cosmetics.

    Something I've noticed when playing against people on MTGA is that, at the beginning of each new season, when a new cosmetic rolls out, everyone jumps to grab it before it's gone so they can personalize their in-game persona that way, and for about a week at the start of every month, half the players you play against have the same card sleeves, profile person, or pet. Rather than allowing people to individualize and be themselves, this personalization mechanic causes people to all look the same for a while!

    So, what does all this have to do with community and individualism? I'm writing this blog post today to propose that perhaps the best way to recognize and honor each person's individual differences is by living in a more community-centric society, while the best way to make everyone into a face in the crowd or a number in the machine is to focus so much on individualism that it becomes a mass-produced sale item that everyone wants.

    In a community, if everyone is focused on community goals (such as building a barn, if it's still the 1800s), then roles and jobs can be assigned based on what each person is good at, allowing each person to play to their strengths. Jacob is really strong, so he'll be on the team hauling the lumber in, and Maria makes the best pot roast, so if she would be willing to help cook the big community meal after, we'll all benefit. This works a lot better than having Maria help haul lumber while Jacob cooks the food, because that's not where their talents lie.

    In our current society, what I see is a lot of pressure on people my age to go to school and get "a good job." And everyone knows that the best, highest-paying jobs go to doctors, lawyers, and so on, and that to be a doctor or a lawyer, you have to be good at school and go to school for it. There's a lot of emphasis placed on having "a good job," but as far as I can tell, the main qualifier for whether or not a job is "good" is if it's considered "respectable" work that everyone knows is important and is willing to fork off a lot of money for you to do.

    However, I see a whole lot of people doing really critical jobs, who get no recognition for it from society. These are the folks who drive garbage trucks, who clean the floors and bathrooms at the schools, who build the houses and mend the roads. These are the folks who are out there working jobs that are considered "nasty" or "dirty" and getting paid relatively little for it--but if all those blue-collar workers went on strike, America would fall apart. A lot of these jobs don't require advanced college degrees, and they play to different strengths in people than all the "respectable" jobs.

    But if we're pushing all our young people into getting a "respectable" job, and their strengths lie somewhere else--such as bike mechanics or electrical work or something less intellectual and more hands-on, are we really promoting their individuality?

    The way I see it, individualism is all about "getting ahead." Life becomes a competition--who's going to make the most money the fastest so they can buy all the luxuries and cool things that will let them be who they are? Who's at the top of the food chain, who's making the money, who's got the power? Life stops being a community endeavor where we all work together and becomes politics, and the people who do the best are the people whose gifts fall within the accepted system.

    I'm one of those people--I do great at academics! I test really, really well, and I got great scores on the ACT and AP Calculus test. But when people learn that about me, they automatically assume, "Oh, Elia's super smart." And granted, I can learn a lot of intellectual information very quickly if I want to. But if you listen to my early childhood education classes and everything Howard Gardner had to say, there are eight major types of intelligence! Just because I'm really good at the visual, intellectual side of things doesn't mean I'm smart in all areas--put me in front of my open car hood, and I can tell you where to check the oil and where to put in the coolant; put me in front of any other open car hood, and I'm completely lost. Ask me to figure out what's wrong with a bike that isn't working properly, and all I can do is shrug and say, "It's broken."

    So let's focus on our communities: our families, our friends, our neighbors. What does our community need?

    My brother is great at bike repair. If someone's bike is broken, they can take it to him and he will figure out what's wrong with it and have it fixed quick.

    My sister is incredibly artistic. I'm getting married in the near future, and my fiancé and I wanted stained-glass windows to add some Medieval flair to our wedding décor, and she figured out how to make "stained-glass" windows out of cardboard and cellophane. Despite their humble beginnings, what she's got done so far looks incredible.

    My mom is a fantastic cook. I like her food better than I like food from any restaurant. She can adapt recipes and invent new ones straight out of her head and make them taste better than the store-bought or restaurant version.

    My dad is an amazing musician. When he plays the violin, it's like all the angels of Heaven have gathered together to sing. He's also a great teacher, and teaches people who want to learn how to play every day at his job as a junior high orchestra teacher.

    My other brother has a gift for building things. He bought a house that started as a kind of garbage house, but over the last few years he's been slowly tearing down the bad things and building better, stronger things in their place. He still has a lot of work to do, but of everyone in our family, he is the one most able to build a house 90% by himself.

    I am a writer. I'm going into early childhood education for my Associate degree, and I'm looking into family sciences for my Bachelor's, but as much as I love learning about these things, and as good a job as I could get with either of those degrees, I'm mostly there for the information because I want to know. My real dream is to write fantasy novels that can inspire future generations of readers the way my favorites have inspired me.

    If we look just within my family and try switching up the roles, what do we get?

    If we look just within my family and try to force every person to get the same ultra-high-paying career so they can "get ahead" and afford the things that will let them "be themselves," what do we get?

    One of the biggest things I've learned so far is that life doesn't have to look a certain way. Societal expectations are garbage! Just because there's a subset of jobs that "most people" are doing (guess what: "most people" doesn't exist) doesn't mean that one of those jobs is going to be right for an individual. Just because there's a trend that "most people" are following doesn't mean that it's going to be right for an individual to follow that trend.

    Don't make decisions because "most people" are doing it. Make decisions because they're right for you. And rather than jumping on the individualism train and following all the trends to stand out, consider what your personal gifts are, and what good you can bring to the world community by developing and using them. Rather than jumping on the new cosmetic before it disappears, keep an eye out for something you actually love--and don't get down on yourself if it's one of the five basic dragon pets that is always available. If you like that "basic" thing best, go for it! That's the best option for you.

    Plus, in MTGA, at least, only buying the few cosmetics you love best means you'll have more in-game gold to spend on more cards... But even then, it depends on where your priorities are. I prefer to get lots of cards so I can do cool things in my decks. Some people want to have a ton of cosmetics to choose from when they play. That, too, is an individual choice based on how people want to interact with the larger community.

    These are my thoughts. I would love to hear yours. If you have any counterpoints to what I've said, feel free to share them! I would love to have a discussion and hear any ideas I might be missing.