Individualism - a reading list

Individualism is an ideology, for many it is a way of life. It is not, however, a way of life that we necessarily want to live, especially not the hyper version of it. Sadly though, as a consequence of living in an economic system that rewards (and often demands) selfish behaviour, it is all too easy to slip into ‘me first’ mode. We might be suffering a kind of society-wide Stockholm syndrome.

Over the coming weeks and months we will post various pieces that explore what hyper-individualism is. We will look at how it emerged and what it is doing to us as people (isolation, stress, anxiety) and as a society (fragmentation, polarisation, inequality). We will look too at how hyper-individualism intersects with environmentalism, examining how it holds the environmental movement back, and how it drives the excessive levels of consumption (of goods and energy-hungry services) that are causing the climate and nature crisis.

We won’t do this to wallow in self pity in a dark corner of The Miracle Inn, we will do this because it is important to know your enemy. As a problem to solve, individualism (and its bastard child hyper-individualism) is two things: (i) a key root cause of the social, political and environmental malaise we find ourselves in, and (ii) a major blocker of the counter-movement that is needed to weaken its ideological grip over who we are and how we live.

As we gear up to launch The Miracle Inn, we offer here a short reading list on individualism. We will be drawing on these pieces, and many more, in articles, newsletters, and events to come to try and make sense of individualism. Members of The Miracle Inn will be encouraged to engage as contributors to this effort too, together we will develop a deep understanding of the forces we are up against and the forces we need to muster to fight back.

• BOOK: Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis by James Davies

• ARTICLE: Individualism | I’m the only one by White Supremacy Culture

• ARTICLE: How Individualism Undermines Structural Thinking About Racism — and What We Can Do About It by Frameworks

• ARTICLE: The Growth of Hyper-individualism in Western Society by Sara Soltanpour

• ARTICLE: Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager by Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov

• ARTICLE: Be Kind, Everyone is Fighting a Social Atrophy You Know Nothing About by Sarah Stein Lubrano

• ESSAY: Fascism and the Denigration of the Individual by Joshua Blu Buhs

• MAGAZINE: Lumpen #135: Togetherism by Lumpen

• BOOK: Rewilding Education: Rethinking the Place of Schools Now and in the Future by Hilary Cremin

• LINKEDIN: Curious paradox of individualism by Dave Snowden

• ARTICLE: Everything is In-Between by Douglas Rushkoff

• ARTICLE: For Those Who See What Others Don't Yet by Anna Branten

• ARTICLE: The Path to Wholeness by Ernesto Van Peborgh

• BOOK: Earthwards: Transformative Ecological Education by Katharine Burke

• TV SERIES: Shifty by Adam Curtis

• BOOK: Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Andreotti

• ARTICLE: Individualism Threatens Public Health by Berkeley Media Studies Group

• ARTICLE: Changemakers of All Stripes by Harmony Labs

• PODCAST: Downstream: Prof. Jonathan White by Novara Media

• TEDx TALK: The Gains and Perils of Individualism by Kerry Uebel

• TEDx Talk: Why is Environmentalism Failing? by Morgan Phillips

Please use the contact us page to send us your recommendations. What are you reading?

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