I was getting ready to exit the subway this morning on 32nd St. A small crowd of people was waiting to get into the train car, but instead of standing back and waiting for everyone to get off and then getting on, they held back for just a moment and then began to push their way in.
Entering and exiting subway trains has always been problematic, but the problem is getting worse, particularly as the population increases and more people ride. Unless there is a return to a common sense understanding that all things will be much more efficient and expedient if those wanting to get on the train wait until all those getting off are in fact off. As it stands, the chaos and gosling that results from everyone trying to do their OWN thing all at the same time accomplishes nothing but frazzled nerves and longer waits. (Just to let you know that I am not venting because I feel put upon, this incident really didn’t effect me. This is just an observation.)
Here is the problem, and the worst is yet to come. As the result of the drive for rabid individualism marches on in this country, ideas of the common good and a community sense are lost. Selfishness, self-centeredness, personal greed, narcissism, and the loss of concern for anyone else are the outcomes of hyper-individualism. Much of our pop-culture, including the almighty advertising dollar, have encouraged hyper-individualism for the past 35 odd years. Get what YOU can, get what you DESERVE, YOU can have it ALL and to hell with those who don’t, these ideas represent the mantra of the past few generations. We get what we deserve.
There comes a point where the common cultural understanding of the common good, of altruism, of concern for the welfare of the other person becomes alien – this common sense has been breed out of us, so to speak. The outcome is chaos and a world that will not look much different than the Mad Max movies of the 1980’s.
I know that people not waiting for others to get off a subway car is a minor kind of incident, but it represented to me this morning the outward manifestation of the virus of hyper/rabid-individualism. This virus will destroy our ability to function as a civil society all being together under the rule of law, common decency, and life-sustaining community.
What will happen? A loss of personal liberty – it has already begun (the Patriot Act, for example). When we no longer know our neighbors and when our personal, individual safety is threatened without a strong, inbreed culture sense the wellbeing of the whole community rather just the self, everyone becomes suspect. Well, we won’t abide chaos for too long. What will happen is a clampdown on “rule breaking” and personal liberty. The end result will be far less freedom than when the whole “libertine” movement escallated beginning in the 1960’s. They thought the 1950’s were oppressive, just wait!
I thought this morning, “each subway car has a few burly men standing at each door. When the doors open, these men form a barrier to open a path for everyone to get off the train. Once everyone is off, then they allow people to get on. Now, some hyper-individualists will balk and try to fight their way through, but these burly men will have to basically beat then down. Taser, anyone? Kick in the groin?”
A far-fetched scenario? Perhaps, but in order to restore a sense of order intense means will have to be employed. We loose our liberty. We lose balanced individual expression, because during such times conformity becomes paramount. We lose it all in the name of hyper-individualism and the encouraged selfishness and greed that has always plagued humankind, and of which the zeit-qeist strives to deny the outcome.
The world changes, yes. Change is not a bad thing by any means. Yet, we have to be honest in perceiving and discerning the direction in which change is moving and whether that direction is beneficial or not. The end result is not guaranteed.