"We're all individuals" - "I'm not"

(Lot's of Life of Brian References) 

However nice "always look on the bright side of life" is as a sentiment, the world would rapidly not be a nice place at all if we only ever spent our time looking at the nice sides. Unfortunately we need to look head on at the nasty bits, call them out and seek to change them. 'Cause sometimes life is "a pile of shit when you look at it", and someone needs to say it.

I feel I have been getting into many different arguments recently, about the Olympic closing ceremony, 50 shades of grey, whether its ok to say female commentators voices are 'grating', whether free market economics will solve all the worlds problems, etc. etc. 

Often I feel like I'm in that crowd of people all chanting 'we are individuals' and being the loan little voice suggesting that maybe we're not. 

The tyranny of western 'freedom' is starting to get me down :(

Let's take 50 shades of grey as an example. The reason I and many others are publicly and loudly stating that this book is about and condones abuse and we suggest people shouldn't buy it, is because we understand the normalising power of popular culture. 

You're reading 50 shades of grey on the tube - now you identify the behaviours of Christian Grey as abusive and would never tolerate it. But the 17 year old girl next to you, whose boyfriend makes her watch porn and who's just seen 50 shades prominently displayed in a bookshop and is now reading a bit over your shoulder, she now feels less able to say no to abuse and coercion. As Gail Dines points out the decision for many young women has come to be 'be a sexual object or be invisible'. 

Now you could say that's not your problem, that a person's right to read what they want shouldn't be infringed, that a book can't cause abuse, that someone else should do something to support this young woman, after all you're an individual, she's an individual, you don't know each other and have nothing to do with each other.

Or you could recognise that every choice you make, from where you keep your money, to what tea you buy, to who you give a platform, to what jokes you laugh at, to what you chose to market and sell, impacts on the degree of constraint or freedom of other people's choices. Now here's a choice: you could choose to let that be important data in your decision making process. 

So you can choose to continue to be in a crowd of individuals making individual choices, and strangely still all heading in the same direction, or you could join the little crowd of people who recognise their need for, and responsibility towards each other.

'What has individualism ever done for us?' Well it's brought us creative freedom, freedom of expression, individual rights etc. etc.  - But I still don't think it should get to be an occupying force. 

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS