Communitarian Individualism and Other Ironies

We live in an ironical age, a time in which we ironize everything to the point of oblivion. Yet, it’s a time of irony in another sense: our age is one of communitarian individualism. This may sound like a paradox but is actually our biggest cultural problem; everything is backward and yet we call it progress.

The common critique from traditionalists is that our age loves the individual. That is, everything is about “me” and how I can actualize the “me” I believe I must actualize. And they’re right that is an enormous problem. We live in an age in which we ask “why can’t I as a woman wear no shirt in public at all times” instead of asking “why should I want to go topless if its only benefit is to allow me to do what I want.” It’s a time when everyone loves the irony of Kurt Vonnegut but no one appreciates the irony of both Ann Coulter and Al Sharpton enjoying popularity.

But, I contend, it is also an age of too much community! I’m a traitor, I know. But it is an age of too much community because too little emphasis is put on thoughtful self-reflection. On the individual level, there exists too little self-scrutiny, which is perpetuated by thoroughly unreflective communities. We use irony to defend our personal choices. To return to my above example, we post memes of men going topless and women going topless side-by-side and then laugh smugly, happy to have disarmed the hypocrites with our indefatigable wit. And then, to make matters even better, we get our likes and comments and cries of rage: “YES! I am so tired of this hypocrisy. I demand liberation!” Cries of joy ensue and we can all pat each other on the back feeling rather proud. We’ve done it; we’ve liberated the oppressed and toppled the oppressors.

Here, unreflective community has perpetuated the unreflective individual. Irony has been used to disarm a straw-man who never commented on the post and everyone is left feeling well enough. This is our problem: we revel in individualistic communities instead of communalistic individuals. We should prefer reflective individuals who are interested in community to self-serving individuals banding together to further their own agendas. It’s all quite ironic and that’s all very fitting for our time and place. Oh, the irony!