Capitalism and the Management of Individualism

It is widely contended that individualism is a product of modernity and a feature closely associated with capitalism. At the same time, there is some discontented recognition of the homogenization that results from mass-production, and a certain nostalgia for personal craftsmanship (note the popularity of the word "artisanal"), cottage industries, and mom-and-pop businesses. I have looked before at several ways in which modernity in general and capitalism in particular have generated contradictory impulses. It is interesting to consider how this principle applies to the idea of individualism.

On the one hand, modernity has atomistic tendencies. Capitalism is based on the commodification of individual labor; governmental power relations focus on penetrating and shaping individual consciousness (often, for example, centering upon educational campaigns); religion is a matter of personal beliefs. The motto of neoliberalism is “personal responsibility.”

To the extent that power relations hinge upon the Individual, it follows that individuality assumes a heightened importance as a cultural value. The significance of this value is far from difficult to detect in popular culture and public discourse. Everyone is extolled to “be yourself.” People struggle to figure out exactly what particular career is meant for them. Modern societies pride themselves on the ability of their citizens to follow their own beliefs and personal whims. (This is contrasted to the perceived patriarchal authority/entrenchment in tradition of less modern societies.)

Yet paradoxically, individuality is realized within categories, and while modern power relations act upon the individual, they simultaneously do so by reinforcing and homogenizing these categories. Scientific research on human beings separates populations into discrete, internally homogenous categories, which are used in the construction of simplistic cause-effect relationships. Survey research and polling likewise reinforce social categories through the use of statistics (and thus we scrutinize “the black vote” and “the women’s vote”). We are barely able to comprehend the ways in which these categories intersect. Moreover, categories are so important to the basic mechanics of modernity that opportunities for reinforcement are constant.  All institutions (medical, educational, legal, professional, etc.) define people in relation to social categories, and thus it is not possible to interact with any institution without overtly constructing one's identity via these categories. One cannot apply for college, go to the doctor, or rent an apartment without classifying oneself on the basis of race, gender, marital status, etc.

Even more paradoxically, as diversity and “being yourself” are celebrated, the ideologies and strategies of power associated with modernity have created the concepts of normality and deviance (in a way that never existed before). Children are subject, probably more than anyone, to constant comparisons against the norm; their development is carefully measured and tracked against growth charts; rigidly defined stages of mentally, emotional and moral development; and cultural standards (e.g. regarding the appropriate age to potty train or wean).  Statistics and psychology are the primary tools of governmental power, and they work together to define normality and deviance.  Statistics provide percentiles and bell curves.  Psychology lends scientific legitimacy to cultural norms and renders deviance as pathology. You have trouble with social situations? You are diagnosed with some sort of psychological disorder, which defines who you are as a person – a defective person.

Finally, from a more materialistic standpoint, which I have already alluded to at the beginning of this post, individuality is celebrated at the same time that our lives are overtaken by mass-produced goods. A relatively small handful of corporations determines what we wear, what we eat, and what we watch on tv. Rebellion and nonconformity are expressed through the possession of commodities that have been socially coded as such. In fact, the people on the fringes are the trailblazers who, purposefully or not, determine what the “next big thing” is. They do not lie outside of the curve; they determine its shape.

In the modern world, the Individual has a privileged position as the basis of governmental and capitalistic power relations. The sanctified status of the individual has come at the expense of communal bonds and social support mechanisms. At the same time, the forms that individual subjectivity can take are carefully managed, limited, and homogenized by those same forces. Individual subjectivity is, after all, a medium of power.

Male Violence

The other day I came across an article discussing the gendered nature of mass killings. I took a look because I was curious about what this person might have to say about gender and violence.

To start, the author presented some fairly obvious data illustrating the disproportionate prevalence in the United States of mass killings committed by men compared to those committed by women.

Now, the author took the data as an indication that males possess some sort of innate tendency toward violence. In fact, she chose for an analogy illnesses like lupus and anorexia, which disproportionately affect females, and to which an awareness of gender is employed in treatment and prevention.

And so I completely lost interest in this ground-breaking analysis. Any argument that rests on the concept of "human nature" - particularly a nature whose variations follow exactly along lines of gender and race - is automatically suspect to me. I have already discussed the rhetorical use of "human nature."  Yet I do not think I have touched on the social construction of gender in enough detail to warrant a link here.

I don't want to get too far off course, so I will limit myself, for now, to violence and aggression. It is commonly believed it is a biological fact that males are more aggressive than females. And testosterone is the culprit. In fact, no such evidence exists. Studies on testosterone are notoriously difficult to conduct, and the best ones have been conducted on birds, not people. Furthermore, they do not yield any conclusive findings.

You will argue, surely the prevalence of violence among males (compared to females) throughout history is proof enough. The problem is, it is difficult to make judgements about some sort of pure, unadulterated "human nature" when it has, for its entire existence, been so thoroughly polluted by society and culture.

To me, the fact that acts of mass violence are almost entirely committed by men suggests that this violence does not stem from any human nature at all. There is no evidence that anything biological is driving gender differences (gender as a set of behavioral traits, as opposed to sex, a set of anatomical features); and heaps of cross-cultural evidence prove just the opposite. However, there are countless numbers of societal features that do create and sustain gender differences. So it would be logical to suppose that these same societal characteristics are responsible for nurturing a male tendency toward violence.

To that end, I have subsequently come across the following articles that argue precisely that point.

http://jezebel.com/5928584/why-most-mass-murderers-are-privileged-white-men 
http://mona-uwi.academia.edu/ChristopherADCharles/Papers/1266846/Hegemonic_Masculinity_and_Mass_Murderers_in_the_United_States

Myth #4: Diseases are Discrete Entities

Modern medical practice is essentially built upon the idea that deviance comes in discrete packages ("disease," "infection," "disorder," "syndrome," etc.). This leaves the following tasks for medical researchers and health practitioners:

1. Refine the definition of the deviance-entity; draw sharper boundaries.
2. Improve the process by which it can be recognized according to its symptoms.
3. Identify the cause(s).
4. Discover potential treatments.

If a patience presents a heretofore unencountered set of symptoms, medical professionals immediately attempt to determine "what" this person "has," and isolate the essence of this newly discovered entity.

This regimen has produced two major tendencies:
1. The proliferation of diseases and disorders. As new realities are encountered, new entities are devised to account for them. Additionally, new diseases mean new research programs, new grants, more journal articles, more conferences, different ways to market treatments: in effect, more ways to circulate capital and sustain the work of those in R&D fields.

2. Growing prevalance of certain diseases. In part, this occurs when new experiences are not separated into new disease categories, forcing already existing ones to expand. And in part, this results from the pathologizing of characteristics that were previously viewed in a different light. Once again, from an economic standpoint, escalating rates of disease mean expanded investment in research and increased markets for treatments.

This is not to say, of course, that capital investments are the only (or even most important) driving force behind these tendencies, or that the medical establishment does not accept these premises concerning the nature of disease with all intellectual sincerity.

However, this does highlight the way in which our propensity to view health in terms of discrete, material entities is shaped by a capitalist organization of social institutions (including those related to medical research and public health), in which capital investments are discretely categorized and allocated according to quantifiable outcomes; goals and results are measured in terms of material inputs; and individual human bodies serve as the primary site of intervention (as opposed to integrated social processes).

This all occurs in the face of one undeniable fact: it is really hard to define diseases in such a way that they may be sustained as discrete entities. In actuality, we don't discover diseases; they are not just sitting there, waiting for us to learn of their existence. We create diseases, disorders, syndromes, etc. Faced with a complex and variable reality, we impose categories upon our experience in order to simplify and more easily understand it. Oftentimes definitions of diseases are based more upon history and accident than on any coherent set of principles. Furthermore, a single disease may present such widely varying symptoms that any two people may experience it in entirely different ways, and the causes may be multiple or unknown. (Autism is a great example.) Why, then, should it be considered a single "thing"? Still, we proceed as though the categories that we have created have an essence and an existence all of their own, and our task is to simply discover what that essence is.

There are significant social and political implications as to what behaviors and conditions become pathologized (or de-pathologized, in the case of the removal of "homosexuality" as a psychiatric disorder). What we see as a "problem" is deeply socially embedded. It should also be noted that the creation of "problems" is, in itself, a strategy that is employed by dominant forces to mobilize social and political resources, as well as capital flows, in the service their own agenda. Not that every new disease is a conscious and strategic creation of a conspiring economic elite, but one should be aware of the way in which this generalized (and non-uniformally applied) strategy can be employed in the domain of health.