Desocialisation

The ancient and enduring needs of food, shelter and safety have more or less been satisfied in developed countries during modern times with the gradual development of capitalist systems and technology. The main problem with this situation is that many of the emotional needs required by humans have been ignored by this process. The community spirit has also virtually disappeared and secondly many peoples social abilities have gone with it, leaving a vacuous human shell that is unable to properly interact with other humans.

In the developed world people are enjoying a prosperity that is unprecedented in history, technology and mass production have enabled us to produce goods and services with an efficiency that allows us to have anything we want whether it be for shelter, travel, entertainment, gadgets, all sorts of food and disco bars. With all this prosperity there has been a significant change in the value system of many people with an emphasis on what they can consume, not what they can contribute to others and their society. This has had a detrimental impact on community life.

The planning of our cities around economic objectives has created a suburban culture that also encourages consumerism and not much else. The normal interactions based around community life are few and people are isolated in their homes or work places not engaging with those around them outside a consumer context. There are many examples throughout our cities of these socially dysfunctional buildings, the fast food joint with a drive through, the soulless office buildings built with cold stark materials and shopping centres full of bright light and franchised retail stores full of disinterested teenage staff. Furthermore our suburban homes and apartments are now designed to withdraw from the outside world and not integrate with the wider community. These McMansion type homes are centred around television, computers and other gadgetry to entertain the individual and allow him to disengage with those around him including other family members within that home.

People in past traditional societies got most of their fulfilment from spending time with family, friends and acquaintances. It was normal for people of different ages and backgrounds to be communicating and sharing experiences with one another, often these were lifelong interactions. Examples would of been a grandparent taking care of his grandchildren, a housewife talking to the local butcher and a teenager working as an apprentice learning from a middle aged tradesman. Thus in general people were better socialized and not just limited to interactions within their own age group. As we progress in to the 21st century we can see the younger generations are becoming less and less socialised. Examples of what I see in today's youth are indicative of the inability of many young people to interact with other people in a normal way especially with those outside of their own generation. These examples are constant listening to Ipod music, frequent mobile phone chatter and text messaging, rudeness and disrespect to others and in general lack of etiquette. Of course there are many exceptions to this rule and there are many older people with less than desirable behaviour. My objective is not to assign blame to these youth but to analyse the environment that is causing the breakdown in healthy social behaviour.

The solution to our social problems will be very difficult to achieve as consumerism is integrated into our psyche and it is hard for many people to think outside of this reality. Small steps that we can take individually and in small groups are to limit the amount of time we watch television, surf the net and play video games. We can also limit the amount of time that we do nonessential shopping and when we do to go, to visit local shops not oversized shopping malls. What people should be focussing on is spending time with friends/family/neighbours as well as getting involved in community activities such as school fetes, sporting events and other common interest groups. This may not seem very cool to many young people but neither is being obese, social inept and sitting in front of the computer/TV for hours on end.

On a political level we can also change how are cities are designed by promoting local communities and smaller housing and shops that are less about status and economic efficiency and more in line with being part of the neighbourhood. We can also change our school system to teach cultural and moral values as well as academic subjects. I believe achieving these objectives is not impossible it is just a matter of discussing these issues with other mature and intelligent people and then taking action to move forward. This is one of the goals of the Australian Nihilists and we encourage people who may already be thinking about these issues to come along to our meetings, organise their own if in different regions, write articles or just even sign up and participate on our forum.

By Nicaea