Individualism is thus established as a failure to trust the capacity of people to gather together on behalf of successful solution to a major problem. We chose not to engage because we don’t think engagement with other people makes any real difference. Furthermore, this is all self-reinforcing (one mirror reflecting a second mirror). We don’t’ engage because we believe engagement doesn’t work, leading to greater intensification of the unresolved problem. This, in turn, leads to even stronger and more resistant belief that the problem is unsolvable. Thus, we are truly beholding to external forces and feel alienated from our own personal strengths and purposes. As Slater (1970/1976, p. 25) notes, “our world is only a mirror, and our efforts mere shadowboxing—yet shadowboxing in which we frequently manage to hurt ourselves” – leaving us, like Slater’s mythic American, alone and afraid.
Dependence
Loneliness for Philip Slater resides in yet another condition of many contemporary societies. We seek out independence—from a very early age—yet need other people and in our often “childish” attempt to be independent find that we must rely on other people and hate this reliance. The outcome is blaming other people and willful isolation. Like the mythic American that Slater described, we are left resenting the assistance (or even offer of assistance) by other people—and are left in loneliness.
Our “independence” is often expressed through the demands we make to have options from which we can choose – whether it be a brand of cereal or a political leader. The choices we are “allowed” to make are often trivial, yet they give us a shallow sense of independence—a “false freedom” (Bergquist, 2020a). These choices also lead us to take personal possession of products and political positions. We “consume” and personally possess in order to find what we believe is freedom (Fromm, 1955). In fact, as Slater (1970/1976, p. 28-29) observed, our possessions load us with next freedom-restricting obligations (such as earning a living in order to pay for these possessions). This leads us to purchase more goods thereby declaring our sustained freedom (be it ever so false or at least trivial) Another self-fulfilling cycle is engaged with new possessions leading to the acquisitions of even more possessions. To offer one of Philip Slater’s quotes: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!”).
Another outcome associated with a quest for independence is recognition that internal locus of control can be quite fragile. We rely on that which is unreliable. According to Slater (1970/1976, p. 29) this has led to a corrective reliance on some form of external monitoring (and ultimate control). Slater writes about “chaperonage” as a policy (and social norm) that pervades our society. We don’t trust the teenager’s internal control (especially as related to passion and sexuality)—as a result, for many years, we required a young, unmarried couple to be “chaperoned” when they were dating. Something of a similar character is engaged with regard to the regulation of our impulse to gain power (political chaperonage), accumulate wealth (economic chaperonage) or engage in many other societal activities.
Slater (1970/1976, p. 31) concludes that: “under stable conditions external controls work perfectly well. Everyone knows her own place and her neighbor’s and social deviations are quickly countered from all sides. When conditions fluctuate, norms change, people move frequently and are often among strangers, this will no longer do.” Thus, external chaperonage is challenged when conditions are unstable—and they certainly are unstable in a mid-21st Century world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, turbulence and contradiction (VUCA-Plus) (Bergquist, 2020b). This being the case, then nothing is quite safe when it comes to reliance on external control as a guide for internal control. Both sources of control seem to be uncertain. We are left alone with no reliable control—as was the case with the American in Slater’s opening myth.
