Sometimes the situation just screams “incongruous”. The two thoughts just don’t line up.
An associate pointed out that some argue that they don’t trust teachers with curriculum, but they’ll trust them with a gun.
Put together, the arguments don’t fundamentally work. What connects them is trust, which the associate clearly linked. And the implication is obvious.
And because the implication is obvious, the associate went on to say “do you hear yourselves?”
Yes, I suppose they do. And also No, I suppose they don’t.
While it is easy to connect these problems, it is just as easy to pretend they aren’t connected.
The problem is a kind of hyper-individualism.
If I am me, then you are you. We are fundamentally and eternally disconnected. Even when you and I do the same things at the same time, we (in this view) are entirely disconnected. There is no true value in saying “we’re the same” or in arguing that we have something in common.
In a world of extreme individualism, there is only I and never we. Because we only exists as an I.
The implications are profoundly destructive for community in every sense of the word. But rarely discussed in its effect on our thinking.
Just shift the nature of the individual from a person to a thought. Or, say, a decision one makes. Even ideologies or concepts. When we think of these things as individuals and that communities (ie. disciplines, areas of study, etc.) don’t exist, then each argument exists in its own vacuum.
What is the right thing to do?
As a question in the abstract, the answer may be profound. We might say: what helps people. Or what feels right.
But when we ask this question in a particular context, the answer gets quite specific. Some people will say that arming teachers seems like a rational response to gun violence. Precisely because the exclusive context of gun violence often begets a self-defense argument.
In short, it seems rational (when the wider context is excluded) that the only option is to arm teachers.
Anyone who understands the wider context, however, can easily see the danger inherent to arming teachers. To these, it is obvious because, not only can a thousand things go wrong, but the scientific evidence contradicts the self-defense argument.
So, again, why is it so obvious to some and not to others?
Individualism rejects connection. It refuses to connect. And it actively disconnects.
It has us strip an argument from its context, decide only on the perceived merits of it, then reinsert it back into the context. And now we all have to live with the consequences.
Undermining Freedom
This is how we can create a view of freedom that renders the nature of freedom inert.
The individualistic view of freedom seeks to give the individual unlimited freedom. Not simply as an ideal or desire, but under the law. Our favorite word for this is unfettered. We don’t want any of that pesky “fettering”.
Unlimited freedom. Sounds great. Until your neighbor puts a music bandshell in his backyard and throws concerts that start at midnight. And the entrance is your yard.
The individualistic person scoffs. Calls the suggestion ridiculous. It is also the logical expectation of unlimited individual freedom. Because we dare not regulate. This isn’t an extreme case of what could happen. People rewrite laws precisely to ensure things like this do happen.
It also reveals the paradox of freedom itself. That a right to unlimited freedom will always beget limits to our freedom. You might get annoyed when city ordinances restrict your stuff, but it also prevents your neighbors from stealing your freedom from you.
This is the danger of individualistic thought.
It genuinely disconnects us. Disconnects us from our environment, our neighbors, and even our own good sense.
It walls us off from material, resources, and people who can help us make the most of any situation.
Some want us to disconnect ourselves. To be only individuals. Even those who decry the loss of culture or tradition. Because they would have us disconnect that culture’s demise from this disconnecting drive.
Resist total isolation
This sense of disconnection is extreme. Most of us can regulate ourselves just fine. We know when to draw on a context and when to use a universal idea that is context-agnostic.
But it is imperative that we understand just how extreme this disconnecting impulse can be. And how persuasive it has become as ideology.
It is undermining more reasonable expectations in Supreme Court jurisprudence, for instance. And extreme individualism is undermining how we understand freedom. So certain freedoms are being limited in ways we would never agree to.
Of course, this isn’t just freedom. The same applies to all of our thinking.
We can’t only argue that arming teachers will prevent school shootings without also talking about the dramatic increase in non-shooting situations.
And the dramatic new protective (and expensive) governmental bureaucracy this would require.
And the sheer volume of firearms training that is required to make such a move even minimally effective…
This is what individualistic ideology creates. Decisions which are disconnected from context, which disconnect people from each other, and disconnects our lived reality from our dreams for a better world.
The answer is simple: Connect
Make more connections. Imbed decisions in their context. And recognize the connectedness of everything.
We do this with our thinking and with our lives.
Be a person who connects with other people. Who thinks about how things effect other people. And chooses to be someone concerned with the big picture.
When we connect the dots, we see the whole picture. Choosing not to connect them, is merely playing pretend.