The second lie

The myth of self-determination

We are telling our young people they have to do it on their own..  and its a lie.

As I mentioned yesterday, in preparing for the Australian Religious Press Association conference I came across very enlightening research from the Australia 21 foundation, and in particular from a team led by Professor Richard Eckersly.

The team looked not just at the challenges facing young people but examined the potential causes of the problem that are endemic in our society.

They highlighted two foundations that our economic system is built upon, that are clearly not healthy: Materialism and Individualism.

The United States cherishes the ideal of the “self-made man”, however as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book “Outliers”, there really is no such thing.

We are all profoundly influenced by the networks we happen to be born in to. Gift and hard work are important but probably come a distant third behind the affect of our networks.

Yet rather than trying to redeem the networks and structures that affect their lives, we still tell our young people the lie that it’s all up to them.

The team led by Eckersly say:

Individualism – placing the individual at the centre of a framework of values, norms and beliefs, so freeing people from institutional arrangements, ties and expectations – is supposed to be about liberating people to live the lives they want.

There is no doubt that, historically, individualisation has been associated with a loosening of the chains of religious dogma, class oppression and gender and ethnic discrimination, and so with a liberation of human potential. It has expanded opportunity and made life more exciting.

Yet the reality of freedom is very different from its ideal; it has its costs. Individualisation has transformed the process of identity from a “given” into “task”. The necessity to make something of one’s self (“obligatory self-determination”) has significant implications for collective action and
citizenship, but it also has serious implications for the lives of individuals because of the pressure endlessly to perform, achieve and re-invent one’s self.

Individualisation’s downsides are described in different ways:

• a heightened sense of risk, uncertainty and insecurity and a lack of clear frames of reference;
• a rise in personal expectations, coupled with a perception that the onus of success lies with the individual, despite the continuing importance of social disadvantage and privilege; and
• a surfeit or excess of freedom and choice, which is experienced as a threat or tyranny.

All of these developments tend to loosen the individual’s ties to family, community and society, so reducing the connectedness and support that are important to wellbeing.

However, individualism’s effects may be deeper, more subtle, even paradoxical.

Individualism may also diminish personal control by confusing autonomy (the ability to act according to our own values and beliefs) with independence (not being reliant on or influenced by others). This confusion encourages a perception by individuals that they are separate from others and the environment in which they live, and so from the very things that influence their lives.

The more narrowly and separately the self is defined, the greater the likelihood that the social forces acting on people are experienced as external and alien, and so beyond their control. The creation of a “separate self” could be a major dynamic in modern life, impacting on everything from citizenship and social trust, cohesion and engagement, to the intimacy of friendships and the quality of family life.

Increasing affluence abets this process because it makes independence financially possible.

These possibilities are reflected in the “self-focus” among young people that research has identified. They also suggest that the autonomy that young people prize is the “narrow” autonomy of the separate self; it is having the flexibility and mobility to move around and between the social structures of family, community, work etc., to be only loosely attached, uncommitted, independent.

On the other hand, the tribal connectedness that other studies suggest young people are embracing may be a very human response to the isolation that independence produces. It is probably no accident that the most popular drugs today are those (alcohol, marijuana and party drugs such as ecstasy) that dissolve the boundaries of the self and induce a sense of belonging, a merging with others.

The bible too, makes it clear that individualism is not the way to go:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. (1 Cor 12:12-14)

Dom. Helder Camara said:

“When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist.”

Perhaps its time for us to stop focussing on the problems facing our young people and start having a long hard look at why the problems are there in the first place?