OK. Let's take our time with this one.
As you know, I state repeatedly that humans are social beings. My reading of this situation is it operates in some of the same its ways it does with other social creatures. Bees, ants, termites are the radical examples. There is really no such thing as an "individual" bee. A bee's identity is based on its relation to its hive.
A human from a hundred thousand years ago is genetically no different from a human born today. This means you could take a cavewoman's baby and raise it in our culture and it would grow up to be indistingushable from ourselves.
OK. So next, I address the exact sort of cuture we have here today. I focus on the way it is shaped more by "entertainment" theory than any other factor. This has gotten us into a bind.
As I see it, it threatens to diminish the power of every other institution, including that shibboleth called "good parenting." It is rendering them powerless.
Also, the particular slant toward anti-social messages that skews our media skews our thoughts, our perceptions, our self-images, our lives.
I've attempted to sketch out the situation as I see it in
my journal, where it is discussed at length in the past several entries.
These are and always have been the most powerful external forces operating on me and my life. Would you acknowledge these factors are at play in your life?
If so, what are the implications of this for our society and for our individuality?