Pretense Sustains Denial of Interdependence
"Because we cannot ever be totally adequate, self-sufficient, independent beings, the ideal of rugged individualism encourages us to fake it. It teaches us to be utterly ashamed of our limitations. It drives us to attempt to be superwomen and supermen not only in the eyes of others but also in our own. It pushes us day in and day out to look as if we had it all together, as if we were without needs and in total control of our lives. It relentlessly demands that we keep up appearances. It also relentlessly isolates us from each other. And it makes genuine community impossible." |
| M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum (1987) |
Entire industries thrive on helping us fake it and on separating us into free-to-choose consumption units. To many, freedom has come to be synonymous with consumption-according-to-means. However, a great deal of pollution, habitat destruction, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are correlated with the artificialities! Becoming whole people with our own local economies, our own distinctive give and take, we can get real as producers of what we need in order to be in communities.
When we've made genuine community possible, our wants will have a very different, and much less destructive, character. Having transformed the pretense and isolation, we'll no longer fill their emptiness with stuff.
Posted by David Eggleton at 6/30/2009 1:51 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: independent fake adequate greenhouse gas control freedom isolate stuff appearance producer artificial shame character consume give and take emission whole people energy local economy community pretense need self-sufficient
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: independent fake adequate greenhouse gas control freedom isolate stuff appearance producer artificial shame character consume give and take emission whole people energy local economy community pretense need self-sufficient
Greetings,
I am very intrigued by that "rugged individualism" stuff and the effects it has upon its (figuratively speaking) victims. Can you please clarify to me what you mean by the following:
"Becoming whole people with our own local economies, our own distinctive give and take, we can get real as producers of what we need in order to be in communities."
Regards,
Vassil
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Hi Vassil, and thanks for your attention.
Peck wrote, I think, with people of North America, if not the USA, in mind. The ideal of the rugged individual is part of our culture and combines the courage, daring and "grit" of, for example, pioneers who enacted the westward expansion, participants in gold rushes, leaders of extractive industries in general, Pony Express riders and entrepreneurs who persisted in grand infrastructure and land development schemes when people were mocking them. Self-made man is a variant. Supposedly, all of them are to be admired.
Get real! has been a popular exclamatory retort that is heard infrequently these days. One would say it after hearing an incredible claim or story. Thus, someone who is faking (being false) can make a 180 degree turn and get real. The conversion of a consumption unit (not a whole person) to a producer in a local economy (a whole person) entails such a turn.
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This is a wonderful article. Gracias for the info.
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