#individualism — Public Fediverse posts

A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

The teaching which I received was genuinely democratic in one way. It was not so democratic in another. I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself. But I had also, consciously or unconsciously, been taught that socially and industrially pretty much the whole duty of the man lay in thus making the best of himself; that he should be honest in his dealings with others and charitable in the old-fashioned way to the unfortunate; but that it was no part of his business to join with others in trying to make things better for the many by curbing the abnormal and excessive development of individualism in a few.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 1 “Boyhood and Youth” (1913)

More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #theodoreroosevelt #collective #commoncause #commoninterest #community #exploitation #individualism #mutualresponsibility #mutualsupport #progress #reform #respect #selfcenteredness #selfmade #selfishness

A masculinity crisis

* American Crusade w/ Eleanor Janega
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chvlbx9zAHg

* Manosphere: A community centred on male grievance and empowerment.
https://theconversation.com/youd-better-start-paying-attention-to-the-manosphere-youre-living-in-it-279547

* Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality
https://confrontingpoverty.org/research/rugged-individualism-and-the-misunderstanding-of-american-inequality/
#MasculinityCrisis #manosphere #masculinity #individualism #competition #SocialDarwinism #RuggedIndividualism #ressentiment #entitlement #equality #inequality #CultureOfMisogyny #misogyny #ChristianRight #violence #war #zeitgeist

"It’s not so much that there’s 50-something percent of the country that is committed to Trumpism. But there’s just a huge amount of the country that is not doing well—and I mean that in an emotional way, I mean that in a political way, civically."

#Trump #MAGA #SocialContract #individualism #CommonGood #solidarity
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Illumination in dark times
A genealogy of modern Western selfhood and a post-Western world

"Smith ... outlines a genealogy of modern Western selfhood: a radically individual, hypermasculine character that was formed during the rapid nineteenth-century expansion of the white man’s world. “Bold, conquering, and altogether assertive,” it was “dedicated to action,” hostile to reflection, indifferent to community and the environment, and guilty of possessing, Smith writes, an “undeveloped heart,” a term borrowed from E. M. Forster’s assessment of the British elite." "

" “We must alter our very relations with the world around us.” This means giving up the exalted and exaggerated idea of the West that boosts a masculinist self-image but severely constricts thought and feeling. “We should welcome our era’s uncertainties,...the not-knowing of how the post-Western story will come out.” Smith’s final warning—that “we will not survive the Western notion of the individual much longer”—should resonate today, as nineteenth-century individualism reasserts itself in the degraded Nietzscheanism of Peter Thiel and Stephen Miller." >>

* Mishra, P. (2026, April). "The Authority of Thought". Harper's Magazine.
https://harpers.org/archive/2026/04/the-authority-of-thought-pankaj-mishra/

* Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World by Patrick Smith. 2010 >>
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/169395/somebody-elses-century-by-patrick-smith/
#TheWest #WhiteSupremacy #masculinity #ImpulseControl #EthnoNationalism #WesternCivilization #AngloAmerican #parochialism #individualism #subjectivity #SettlerSociety #Culture #RacialInequality #war #EastWest #PostWesternWorld #DarkTimes #illumination #narrative #environment

Image: Double Bay War Memorial, Steyne Park, Sydney

Rugged individualism and climate change preparedness

" The US president has presided over a dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters."

“Each year above 1.5 degrees will hammer economies, deepen inequalities and inflict irreversible damage,” UN secretary general António Guterres "
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/donald-trump-disaster-response-preparedness

Rugged individualism >>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism
#Climate #ClimateDisruption #FossilFuels #preparedness #regulation #SocietalResponses #CollectiveSupport #SelfReliance #IndividualActions #SettlerSociety #RuggedIndividualism #individualism #sprawl #liberalism #inequallity #disasters #FossilfuelSubsidies

A quotation from Bertrand Russell

Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 9 “Fear of Public Opinion” (1930)

More info about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/792…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #BertrandRussell #autonomy #bullying #cruelty #discrimination #folly #foolishness #heterodoxy #independence #individualism #judgment #nastiness #nationalism #prejudice #racism #sexism #stupidity #merit #virtue