The Rise of Self
And Why it Damages the Person and Society
No one is better nor worse than anyone else. Yet, we are different and unique. Genetically and consciously. However, we do not exist in isolation - nor in a vacuum. We certainly may wish we did - at times at least. Perhaps the classic “hermit” withdrawal from society, or the more subtly anonymisation offered by cityscapes, or a virtual presentation online.
But all of us operate within a rich level of dependency and reliance. Not only on other humans, but clearly on nature too.
But we are seeing a phenomenon where the individual is being placed higher than everything else. The rise of self. Team players more concerned about their own success rather than the team that pays them. Political leaders forgetting they are public servants. The “brandification” confusion that exists in the follower -v- anonymisation conflict.
The radio newsreader with an effected way of pronouncing their name
The TV weather presenter with a repeated and characteristic “goodbye”
Footballers with image rights and compensation clauses when not playing
Political leaders with an overuse of “I” in public speaking
“Quitting” and victimisation during a disagreement
Why? Perhaps continual competition is a forcing factor that increases this brand-competition. But brand of and for what? Clearly social media as a concept in general amplifies “followers not friends” as a metric. Media presenters - and that ranges from pundits to more mundane news and weather presenters - can make a direct association between being “known” to pay, contracts and in turn job security. The assumption being that followers make a brand, a brand can influence, and in turn other brands, powers and voices want to influence the “influencer”.
But has this in turn spread like an epidemic to the guy on the street? Everyone wants attention. Yet simultaneously privacy and anonymity. Everyone gets offended. Unique protection of “being” is essentially the anti-pattern of losing “ego” in the Buddhist sense.
Be tough on “the problem, not the person” is often forgotten, with disagreement and analysis rapidly running down to personality and insult.
This in turn is bad for the individual as an evolutionary twist. If we simulate this through, you would surely end up with hyper-competition for everything, in every interaction and position in a societal structure. Any commonality factors would dissolve, with groupings of any sort diminishing - be they political, military, cultural or artistic. An almost nano-civil war.
An ironic twist of fate, would be that if everyone is different, perhaps no one is different?