Your book is a critique of individualism, by which you mean, as you put it, "Our identities are not separate from the white supremacist society in which we are raised, and our patterns of cross-racial engagement are not merely a function of our unique personalities." What is the problem with individualism?
Individualism cuts the person off from the very society that the concept of individualism is valued in. That’s the great irony, right? If we were in a more community-oriented or collective-oriented society, we wouldn’t value being an individual the way that we do. We have been conditioned to see that as the ideal, that every one of us is unique and special and different, and if you don’t know somebody specifically you can’t know anything about them.
She's saying that individualism is not individualistic at all, but something we absorb as part of a group that deludes us into not seeing ourselves as part of the group.
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15 comments:
Michael writes:
"The Left totally misunderstands the nature of American individualism. It is by no means in opposition to community. Read de Tocqueville, for Heaven's sake. Community is the free association of sovereign individuals for the accomplishment of diverse purposes. It cannot be assigned or predetermined except through tyranny. There are countless thousands of associations (communities) in this country, and people chose to join some few of them that suit their purposes. Of course there are obstacles and the hand of history is heavy, but the founding idea of America was to overcome these things. To reject that idea in favor of some nomenklatura-dominated notion of "community" would be the farthest thing from liberal or Progressive."
Wilbur writes:
"Robin DiAngelo says 'We have been conditioned to see that ... that every one of us is unique and special and different, and if you don’t know somebody specifically you can’t know anything about them.'
"Our Leftists friends have powers far beyond those of mortal men. They can just look at you and know everything about you that matters.
"45 years ago I met some guys in a tavern who claimed to be Klan members. Funny, they claimed they possessed these same powers."
William writes:
"It seems to me that the subtext of "if you don’t know somebody specifically you can’t know anything about them" is that you have to judge people for what they individually and personally have thought and said and done. And what do you get if you deny that? A system in which people can be judged and punished as members of groups: Jews can be held guilty of the death of Christ, or black people of the sin of Ham, or white people whose Scandinavian ancestors emigrated to Minnesota of the ownership of slaves by the ancestors of other white people in other states. I find that kind of thing repugnant, and it's why I believe that justice and social justice are incompatible---and I prefer justice."
DiAngelo tells white people that we're fragile unless we cave in and accept her teachings, but it's fragile to cave in like that! If her meta-lesson is don't be fragile, we should resist her teachings. But she wants to say that to resist is to be fragile. It's so anti-rational.
Ernest writes:
Dutch researchers Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede (father and son) describe cultures in at least six dimensions. Two are Individualistic-Collective and High vs Low Power Distance.
Individualism “is the extent to which people feel independent, as opposed to being interdependent as members of larger wholes.”
Power Distance “is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.”
The USA scores the highest of all nations in individualism (no surprise!) and one of the lowest in Power Distance.
I have lived for years in cultures that are the opposite: high power distance and very collective, and I must say I prefer the USA.
Bob Boyd writes:
""Individualism cuts the person off from the very society that the concept of individualism is valued in."
"No it doesn't. You can be fiercely independent and also proud of your membership in a given group.
In fact, following your individual heart can have the opposite effect. The group frequently celebrates individuals who have achieved great things by thinking and acting in new and different ways. The group holds these individuals up as particularly valuable or admirable members.
"And doesn't DiAngelo also criticize proud individualist Americans for being too patriotic? How many proud individualist Americans have willingly sacrificed their lives and limbs when called upon to do so by the group?"
Temujin writes:
"The most pure definition of 'Gobbledygook' I've ever seen. It's too much of a mess to even call it pretzel logic."
JK writes:
"Robin DiAngelo, and others, are arguing against modernity based on the individual and arguing for a return to the tribal/familial world where people are defined by the happenstance of their birth groups. The last statement in the quote you posted seems to me to be a call for judging people by the color of their skin, their ethnicity, instead of the content of their character.
"I found Prof. Alan MacFarlane’s (Cambridge) ‘The Invention of the Modern World’ to be quite persuasive many years ago. (You can find it online at a site called “Fortnightly Review”, posted in 2012 as a serial or at Amazon) The book is derived from lectures he gave in China that described modernity as it arose in Britain centuries ago as a way to consider the changes that may/are happening in China The following from the preface seems to give a good sense of the book. The text is about aspects of British society and how it came to emphasize the individual rather than a direct contrast to China. link (https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/invention/)
"'THE BASIC DIFFERENCE currently between England and China is that the former is fully modern. That is to say that in England the civilization is based ultimately on the individual, who alone links together the separated worlds of economy, society, religion and politics. Each individual is a microcosm of the complete society, with his or her intrinsic rights and responsibilities. China on the other hand has historically been a group-based civilization where the individual is less separated off from others, where relationships are intrinsic to a person’s identity, where each person is only made complete by being joined to others. In other words, the full separation of economy, polity, society and ideology (religion) has not yet fully occurred in China.'"
Malaise Longue writes:
"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less embodied it is in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
--C. G. Jung
Ignorance or suppression of this truth has produced the varieties of moral panic we've been cycling through for at least the past year.
Kirk writes:
To Michael, re: "Read de Tocqueville, for Heaven's sake."
Heaven's sake right back at ya -- he's one of those Dead White European Males we've all agreed are the source of all our problems.
LA_Bob writes:
I agree with your "anti-rational" and Temujin's (very succinct) "Gobbledygook". They might be polite ways to say "the Empress has no clothes" (I wonder how DiAngelo would rationalize that!).
"Individualism" is one more of those words which means different things to different people. To DiAngelo, "individualism" means "white people bad".
Lars Porsena writes:
"Stop struggling. You will all be happier after you submit to the hive mind."
Assistant Village Idiot writes:
"Robin DiAngelo is just one of many who look at collectivism fondly, as a solution to our problems. The Wrong People get ahead under individualism, you see, and so therefore it must be true that under collective identity thinking the Right People, like Robin & Friends, will get to assume their roles as the natural leaders. Who will get more cookies that way. Status, too.
"The Scandinavian countries have this same mindset, that Swedes (especially) have found the best way to do things, but putting yourself forward individually is a bit arrogant - not quite right. Swedes also all look like second-cousins to each other, and insofar as that is eroding, so is their insistence of group superiority. Reality has a way of interfering with self-serving myths."
Ignorance is Bliss writes:
"We have been conditioned to see that as the ideal, that every one of us is unique and special and different...
"I blame that right-wing extremist Marlo Thomas."
Chris writes:
"The philosopher Diogenes Allen, who was one of my professors in seminary, taught that Western individualism traces back to the ministry of Jesus, to the compassionate way he treated each person, regardless of class, gender, or social group. Jesus’ unique valuing of the individual person was radically different than the cultures of his day. According to Dr Allen, it was Jesus who introduced the value of the individual into the Western worldview.
"I have noticed more and more resistance to the idea that people are unique individuals, first and foremost, but it’s not a view I am willing to set aside. I believe it’s true. In my hospice work I am always seeing people at the end of life when all the social categories have melted away and all that’s left is a person. The person matters."
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