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
I think what I’m talking about here is distinct from what alienation means in the Marxist context!
No, what you say is true. No one is an island. None of us could even exist were it not for other people, both literally (from birth to finding food and water and resources/commodities) and in the more anthropological/sociological sense you spoke of. Capitalism makes us isolated, alienated machines who’s only purpose is to work to produce surplus value for the capitalist. Every other human relation is subsumed into this, and the more “developed” a country gets, the further along this process gets too.
And the latest part of it is the very nature of online communities as they exist curently. The algorithms, created to generate profit, havd figured out the best way to get people to stay on your platform and interact more, at least in the short term, is by tapping into our worst impulses of anger, hatred, disgust, fear etc. So, all online discourse, unless carefully managed, falls into this pattern. And Hexbear falls into this pattern, too. How could it not? Even without such an algorithm here, we have already been trained in this type of toxic discourse in every other platform. And so we bring that here.
I don’t know the solution, other than saying “things will be better under socialism” which they of course will be. Because there isn’t any way it could be worse.
Although, babies are horrifying, disgusting, alien monstrosities.
We have a good amount of evidence from history that while socialism isn’t a magic bullet it really helps. Or even just social spending. One of the big neoliberal projects for looting public coffers was shutting down all support for community centers, youth centers, government sponsored third places people could go to just chill and meet their neighbors. Now those places don’t exist anymore and we’ve got a few privately run community spaces, and we’ve barely got libraries.
I was driving home thinking about how america does have a culture, but it’s like an anti-culture. Endless suburbs and franchizes that destroy and sense of place and make community building difficult bordering on impossible. If you get lost in suburbia there’s barely any way to even tell what part of the country you’re in. Just an endless liminal hell of detached houses specifically designed to ensure you don’t meet or connect with anyone.
The anti-culture is spot on. Amerika truly is the ideal capitalist state. Nothing can you do without it either already being a part of capital, or very soon being gobbled up by it. You must serve capital every loner of your life.
I’m very well-acquainted with how stress and depression can absolutely destroy your capacity for empathy in the short-term, but it is by no means a permanent thing. When people are pushed to their limits psychologically, they’ll go into self-preservation mode, and they can start to view all other people as potential threats, or else simply begin to focus on their own survival to the exclusion of others. It can be reversed through integration with a community, or even just taking the stress off long enough for someone to even out, heal, and start focusing on others again.
As for your assertion that it’s not “just capitalism” but a dissolution of communities that is to blame, what exactly do you think dissolved these communal ties? That was the entire point Marx made with alienation: the things you use become abstracted because your primary relation is now to money, which is ostensibly just the means to acquire the things you need to live, but is now the actual thing you need to live. And your entire apparatus of social relation is fundamentally altered as a result. You become a tool for others to use to make more money, and that’s exactly how most people live their lives. No shit I have no community ties. I’ve lost faith in every organization I once bought into and been forced to endure excruciating pain as a result of not being able to afford medical care, never at any point able to stop going to my meaningless thankless job even in the midst of a fucking pandemic that is still killing people three years later.
Sorry, that probably came across as really angry and hostile. But I been through some shit. The whole point of dismantling capitalism is that it creates the incentives and social structures that lead to this alienation and exploitation and feeding of people through the meat grinder. Create a world where one dipshit can’t ruin thousands of lives and still have his primary concern being that not enough people are seeing his bullshit Tweets where he just says “looking into this.” The community follows. Or rather, returns.
Yeah, exactly. Capital needs to end all other human relations for it to reign supreme. The only way to get them back, and make them better than before, is by ending capitalism.
Yeah I think that’s well said and generally accurate
I agree completely, so long as the pervasive atomization we see is still recognized as a direct and crucial tool of capitalism. Maladaptive forms of social behavior are coached into anyone who won’t embrace anti-social behavior, and the result is that most people either reject social relationships or have them ruined by dysfunction
And of course, alienation from each other alienates us from ourselves
Agreed!
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.
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
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.
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.
One of my favorite insights is that dehumanization spreads itself, and both the objective and the subjective kinds tend to cause each other in a giant web of reciprocal relations. It pops up everywhere, and it is something we will have to consciously fight.
I think the end result of being left alone with your thoughts in combination with only interacting with the terminally online (Facebook, twitter, to a lesser extent hexbear) combined with no real community outside your front door will always fry a brain. Its not a situation anyone can just will themselves out of either society is a fuck.
Having got myself into that hole I can tell you it only leads to bitterness and anger at other people for absolutely no reason.
Its also why I think “logging off” doesn’t really work for people who are truly isolated cos then they are just left to stew and only get more angry then log back on again, also being online is the only social interaction a person can get. The grill pill is a coop pill it doesn’t have single player.
“logging off” doesn’t really work for people
I agree, but I also think that when people say touch grass or log off, they imply that people return to their (presumably somewhat social, at least partially connected) real lives. Most people are not completely isolated in the way that some terminally online posters are, so I think that is a fair assumption to make about what logging off/touching grass refers to. On the other hand, if someone is really isolated, they still need to log off to build that life.
Society is a fuck, but creating a marginal social life is still possible. Obviously difficult, but not impossible!
i think its also to do with segregation based on income, class, race etc. An obvious example is how billionaires never see let alone talk to regular working class people. I think if you see poverty closely and suffering associated with it, you’ll be able to empathize a lot better (it also makes you feel depressed but thats a diff issue). I think America’s car culture also contributes to this.
IDK. I’ve kind of lived my entire life largely devoid of most human relationships; even w/ regards to my parents they kind of never wanted to be around me & either sat me down in front of the vidya games, or tried to shoo me out of the house (I grew up in a rural trailer park, so there wasn’t really anything to do, or anyone to see otherwise), while they spent time drinking, or on their own personal projects.
I currently live largely alone in a one-room apartment where I go to my factory job, do that & then come home everyday, and what social interaction I do get is almost entirely mediated by the internet.
I have my takes on what the issue is, but I know nobody really wants to hear them.
But you can imagine how hollow my existence really is.
humanity
western
empathy
eye ‘contact’
‘conflict’ ‘resolution’
finding babies ‘cute’
holding the door for ‘others’
‘casual’ ‘conversations’
I’m joking btw.
Edit2: Incredible, the US has gotten even shittier since last year. And walking 2 mile long stretches to get to the nearest convenience store, seeing the hostility imposed to pedestrians by not paving sidewalks, dirt trails all the way along highways, etc. Sneeking out an elderly trailer parks mostly full of lonely cat ladies, almost millionaires and the occasional migrant family (of which, I am but the guest of one such family), seeing and feeling the apprehension of the neighborhood; it’s been this way for over a century. Shifty gazes and distrust for centuries.
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.
Couldn’t agree more, and I consider myself a poster more than a lurker. This place has lost its incredibly positive vibes since the change… and I’m starting to get worried. I’m wondering if that was amplified by the reddit “protests” happening at the same time, and maybe we got a few new users who have the reddit debate mentality? I don’t even know. We had struggle sessions in the past, but at least the majority of the content here was fun, loving, productive, or comedic. Now it just seems like people fight about a single subject for days and the only purpose is to “win”. I mostly hang out on hot/new now, but there’s almost never any comments in those posts because everyone’s on the new active.
