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Sometimes I think the world is completely messed up and can't help but think it doesn't have to be like it is. Like, people work for companies like pieces of machinery, people don't talk to one another on the subway, people watch reality tv instead of living their own lives (!).
Is it normal to be confused about why the world is this way and to be so bothered by it?
I'm a struggling musician, struggling writer, and young adult struggling to get into a career that contributes to society in a meaningful way and doesn't leave me utterly spent by the end of the day, too tired to go to the gym and becoming obese with every passing day. I'm working a short contract job with no security and little chance of advancement or a full time position. I commute into work from a suburb and live in a social desert that I can't seem to break out of. Oh and I'm living with my parents and I wish I could afford to move out but I can't. I live in a city where owning a car is mandatory and even renting is ridiculously expensive. Without job security I can't move out and be sure I wouldn't be broke and back at my parents' house in 6 months
I don't know if I'm doing anything different from anyone else, but I'm not a robot. I'm just trying to live a good life (trying being the operative word)
Just finished university btw so I'm doing more than abstractly "trying to get into a career." I've worked my ass off in school and still seems like there's no job for me at the end of it all. They tell you hard work pays off, I've been a straight A student my whole life, worked part time or full time since I was 15, taught myself guitar. When's it going to pay off?
Not sure what happened to your other comment, but here was my reply:
I fucking love your username. Durkheim? I haven't read him in a while, but if I recall, he either coined or popularized the concept of anomie.
Anyway, I stand by my initial facetious point - "dude we're all like corporate robots and shit" is a popular description of society among young adults, especially in cities (Manhattan, if I may hazard a guess?). But ultimately it's a total reduction of the human condition.
1. People work for companies like pieces of machinery.
As opposed to working on farms like machinery? Doing what they like? People are free to make their own career choices, and if sitting in an office is one of them then you're in no place to claim they're just dehumanized robots. We're all equally mindless.
2. People don't talk to one another on the subway.
Depends where you live. Leave the city before it turns you brittle. There are plenty of places in every country where amiable human interaction is still held in high regard. If you live in the US, try checking out the South, where it's basically rude as fuck to not strike up a conversation with someone nearby.
3. People watch reality tv instead of living their own lives.
Again, you can apply generalizations to the world and judge it all you like, but that's completely arbitrary. If someone wants to "live their own life" by being a homemaker and watching the Jersey Shore - I'd personally hate that, but I'm not in charge of their damn life. Neither are you.
Every generation talks about how modernity deprives us of our own humanity. No. The invention of the roads brought as many naysayers about the dehumanization of social interaction as did the invention of the internet. The face of humanity is changing, just like it always has been.
Thanks for the detailed reply! Glad you appreciated the Durkheim reference too.
Just a note on my examples (1, 2, & 3) now that I think about them a little more- they were meant to be more illustrative of the concepts on my mind, which were basically social alienation and existentialism.
1. People work for companies like pieces of machinery.
I think you're right that I put an unfair value judgement on the choice to work office jobs. Part of that is coming from personal bitterness because I've found myself landed in a white collar career I don't enjoy despite my best intentions. I don't think we're all mindless though- I think we're all free to make decisions and some of us don't exercise that freedom. Some people I work with seem to have landed in careers they're unhappy with or indifferent towards through passivity rather than choice. I think disapproval of that passivity is what the intent of my original comment was, although I'll admit its still judgement laden.
2. People don't talk to one another on the subway.
"Leave the city before it turns you brittle"- I think you're completely right. This is what I've come to think too. That was the motivation behind the original post I think- I was brooding about how I wished the world was different, "apply[ing] generalizations to the world and judg[ing] it all [I] like" when the real issue is with the unsuitable lifestyle and personal world I've built for myself. My plan that looked good on paper hasn't panned out and now I'm left to strike out for a better way. I might have to leave the city I'm in, but more importantly I think I need to toss away the lifestyle, I think its a rut, I've gotten myself into.
I guess the broader context of the initial question is I'm at a crossroads I didn't foresee and full of confusion about the next step and eventual destination. I don't like surprises or risk, maybe two reasons for my (subjective) lack of success so far and sense of being trapped in a rigid, unfulfilled existence.
I think modernity can enable just as it can deprive- like fire can keep you alive or burn you alive depending. And a maybe a good next move for me is to find a figurative place and people where my reaction of anomie to my current lifestyle is seen as natural rather than as an anomaly as is the case now (I think I recognized this on some level in the split second it took to think up my user name).
Anyway, thanks for acting as a sounding board with this particular issue.
Sure thing, I love existentialism. Sorry for being snarky at first.
I didn't mean that we're all totally mindless, I meant that we're all mindless to more or less the same degree. Passivity is a choice. Watching Jersey Shore and being someone's office bitch is a choice. A bad choice perhaps, but theirs to make - and sometimes the alternative is worse. The thing about existentialism is that we become free to define ourselves, and only ourselves. Once we realize the world is a pitch-black room, we light our match.
I wish I could help but I feel similarly lost, and at this point it seems like a lot of people do - I think it was Durkheim that argued that anomie is most common in times of economic and societal fluctuation. That certainly applies to us right now. Life seems pretty unfulfilling these days, but that just means it's a great time to light the match.
Also, try not to read too much Camus. Great stuff, but it starts to fuck with your head.
We're all too smug and liberal (myself included). Problems have increased 500% since the 60's.....it's not a coincidence. We pretty much let everyone and everything run amok in the name of freedom. Humans need order and control, they also need to be controlled to save them from themselves.