This is not just a reference to hexbear, but the (western) world at large. I’ve noticed so many people in my life slowly lose their ability to exist in relationship with others. Lose their ability to be social - one of the most basic tenants of humanity. One of the most obvious symptoms is less empathy, but it extends to the bounds of human-human relationships. Humor, conflict resolution, eye-contact, finding babies cute, casual conversation, holding the door for people, whatever. I see it all withering. People are just fucking losing it man.
I know that most people here understand this intuitively, but I guess I’m suggesting to broaden the take. Everyone knows that atomization + high stress society --> anti-social behaviors. But I think that because humankind is so based on existing in relation to other humans, that we (at least on this forum) tend to downplay how far these effects go. I’m saying that beyond being grumpy, we’re losing really basic parts of being human. Most of my friends struggle to communicate normally anymore (and my friends are pretty normal, representative people - not a particularly isolated subgroup of gamers or something). They are no longer able to consider other people’s perspectives, their memories are weaker, and their entire personalities dull over. Those are all symptoms of depression, yes, but I think it’s also related to the fact that our collective humanities are relational. Many people are actually losing innate human qualities because of their atomization. Here’s why:
You cannot be fully human by yourself - the human experience requires interpersonal relation. Humans aren’t just social animals, we literally need community to understand ourselves. Your sense of self depends on validation, corroboration, correction, and guidance from others. E.g., you can’t be a “nice person” without people to be nice to. You can’t be a funny person unless you make other humans laugh. People deeply identify with terms like “smart” or “tall”, and both are completely relational: you can only be smart if there are people you are smarter than. How do you see yourself? Most terms necessitate other people. You can’t even see your own personality without the mirror of community. You couldn’t know if you were smart or kind or funny if you lived in pure isolation. Less theoretically, you can’t understand your personal growth without the notation of people around you. You need outside perspectives because our self-perception is flawed. It is primarily through our friends that we can get a clear understanding of how far we have come, or how deeply we have fallen. You can’t understand it accurately on your own Our dependence on other humans is so deep that our entire essence is rooted in others. We can’t exist in this atomized way. It shreds apart anyone’s humanity.
And so I think a lot of what leftists conclude is the result of society is misplaced- it’s not just the stress of “late-stage capitalism” that causes people to mentally deteriorate in this way. It’s that, in this interpretation of capitalist imperialism, we don’t have any semblance of real community to withstand any of this stress. People in different cultures (even capitalist ones) are able to handle comparatively harder lifestyles in a much more robust way because of that relational perseverance that community affords your psyche. I come from a different country, not America, with significantly worse material conditions. Yet the people are able to cope significantly easier because we have really strong community bonds there. I think that people perceive atomization as purely a symptom of this society, but it’s actually really causal. Of course, capitalism causes the atomization (even weaponizes it!). But I think we do a disservice to our own analysis by over simplifying the psychological effects of atomization to just capitalism = lonely and sad.
Even on this forum, it’s kind of ridiculous how much people are unable to resolve conflict or engage in productive dialectic discourse. I’ve been a lurker for a while and it’s sad to see how much toxicity has been created by virtue of change in algorithm. I think that speaks to the lil cyclical thing going on with losing community/losing humanity/losing community. Yeah, idk. Just drunk thoughts from a lurker who used to be on here more. I hope y’all receive it with kindness or whatever <3
All that “learn to love yourselg” “learn to be happy alone” “you don’t need anyone” “retreat in to a hell of your own making” toxic positivity crap pisses me off so much bc that’s not how humans work at all. If you don’t have a bunch of other apes to sit in a pile with combing each other’s hair you will go insane and end up like America.
And yeah, hexbear has seemed noticeably more hostile since we migrated to Lemmy idk what to make of that.
It’s the stupid fucking Active sorting/algorithm. The same 5 posts stay on the front page for 3 days and get hundreds of comments so of course they turn into shit slinging. Those threads feel way too much like reddit threads.
I have been informed that our big beautiful devs are working on a fix for this tho, hopefully it’s soon
Okay, but that’s also really the only answer literally anyone, including you guys, are kind of willing to give somebody like me. That is to say, a 30yo loveless autistic goon, with a chip on his shoulder about each one of those things.
Mostly when it comes up here we encourage people to go find a local org or a food not bombs chapter or any other kind of community group and do some organizing irl. It’s a powerful way to fight the alienation. It’s not easy at all, but it’s what we’ve got rn.
IDK. That’s true I guess. The whole problem is that those solutions don’t seem actionable to me, because from what I’ve been able to gather just from trying to research shit on social media; whatever local branches of those things that did exist in my area basically stopped existing/functioning in 2020.
So I am largely just left to fester here, I feel like.
I hear that. Things got real, real bad after 2020. A lot of orgs imploded.
Oh, and before I get it to suggestions; This situation sucks, and it’s not your fault, and I totally feel you on the hopeless isolation. Like things are bad right now, just really bad. Feeling hopeless, or just not knowing what to do, that’s a pretty appropriate response to the state of society in the US and in a lot of other places right now. Humans were never supposed to be this isolated in the first place, and the amount of effort it takes to push back against that, even in places where there are local orgs and options, is a lot of effort. It wears people down, people burn out. So if you’re frustrated, if you feel like it’s hopeless, that’s not a personal failing at all. We’re living in a situation that is terrible and far, far out of line with normal human culture and behaviors, and like any other animal put in that situation we’re stressed out and having trouble functioning.
Just to throw out some suggestions, I’d suggest hitting up the local library if there is one. Librarians know a lot about a lot of things, so they might know about, like, adult literacy programs, or meals on wheels. Sometimes you’ll find orgs that send people to old-folks homes to read to the residents or just hang out and sociable. A lot of old people who are living in residential facilities get few or no visitors and loneliness is a real problem.
Part of the problem is that it’s hard to even find out what is out there. Back in the day you could rely on word of mouth, but with everyone so isolated that kind of information spread doesn’t work. : |
If nothing else, some of my anarchist buddies would pool their beer money once in a while and get some gallon ziplock bags and fill them with a pair of socks, some granola bars, some trash bags, a bottle of water, and maybe a few bucks if they could spare it and just walk around downtown handing them out to homeless people. Folks always need clean, dry socks, and when so many people refuse to even acknowledge the homeless it can be a big morale boost to get some help from someone who isn’t judgemental.