This is a topic that I have wanted to tackle for a very long time. I don’t know if I am intellectually equipped to provide an adequate explanation of this idea, but I am going to give it a shot anyway. I am a believer in the cult of done, so if this is terrible, maybe someone else will pick this up.

Individualism has long been suppressed by societies. On a macro level we can look at how religions, traditions, accents and languages have been killed throughout history. I don’t think I need to give examples of such a trivial assertion, but I will just in case, Armenian Genocide, Bhutan, Pol Pot, Hitler, 秦始皇, The English and French during colonialism, the Normans… These are only a few, but I am sure anyone reading this can think of an example in history in which x peoples have been forced to become more like y peoples. This is a matter of cultivating national identity and forming a cohesive in group. While all the examples listed above are atrocities, one might be able to sympathize with their intent. A society of individuals is antithetical to the notion of society. Societies require collaboration, socialisation, trade… A universal binding agents to epitomises the spirit of a group is useful for getting people to work together. For most, it’s a religion or a history, but for some it is an ideology.

After killing god, Nietzsche said, ’must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?’. Thus everyone went out and tried to fill the holes that not having a religion left on a society. It changed from all your action and thoughts being to judged by god and now in the new age judged only by on yourself. People were free to make their own truth, as opposed to a canonical truth imposed by a leviathan (for those who don’t know, this is in reference to complete subservience to a ruler). The western world began to move towards this ideology of freedom, individualism, democracy and capitalism as their state identity. But now we have a problem, everyone is going around doing what is right to them, saying what is their truth and thinking their own ideas with no thought (or a secondary concern) for the success and wealth of the people that live within that group/state.

Here now, when individuals are doing individual things, the governing body no longer has control over it. By the governing body of course I don’t mean a president or prime minster, I mean those in control of wealth. In a capitalist society, those in control of wealth and wealth creation are the ones with the power, with governance only being one of many tools in which they communicate this power. Left alone, these individuals would bind together and realise their mistreatment and rebel. To crush a popular uprising, freedom and individualism must be twisted. Constituents have to feel free without actually being free. Systems have to implemented boasting freedom while actually limiting it, the ideas of what freedom and being an individual means have to be so muddled that the only choice is uniformity. With the expansion of socialisation on the internet, this process is easily stream lined. From advertisements, to movies, to Instagram to news, everything we consume creates an suppresses. The same ideas are circulated, discussed and all of a sudden a new cultural cannon is created, a culture of distraction and homogeneity; a culture where everyone is made to be an individual in the same way.

I don’t know if I properly communicated this idea or if my rhetoric is clear to impress upon you the fabric of the notion of ‘Mass Produced Individualism’. I will return and probably rewrite this later. Broadly, I tried to talk about cultural hegemony, but I don’t know. I am going to go watch football now.