#individualism

The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its depoliticization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capital’s drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry). Second, it provides an enormously lucrative market in which multinational pharmaceutical companies can peddle their pharmaceuticals (we can cure you with our SSRls). It goes without saying that all mental illnesses are neurologically instantiated, but this says nothing about their causation. If it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation; and the task of repoliticizing mental illness is an urgent one if the left wants to challenge capitalist realism. ↗

— Mark Fisher

#capitalist-realism #individualism #mental-health #mental-illness #mental-health

A Libertarian society of unfettered individualism spreads its benefits to virtually everyone - not just those who have the resources to seize political power. ↗

— Harry Browne

#everyone #individualism #just #libertarian #political

In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here is the center of his or her own story. And our job as people and as characters is to find our own motivations and desires, to overcome conflicts and obstacles toward defining ourselves so that we grow and change. ↗

— Adam Johnson

#center #change #characters #conflicts #defining

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures. ↗

— Leon Trotsky

#democracy #freedom #history #hope #individualism

A man who seeks escape from the responsibility of supporting his life by his own thought and effort, and wishes to survive by conquering, ruling and exploiting others, is NOT an Individualist. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#survive #life

It's weird not to be weird. ↗

— John Lennon

#individualism #paradox #individuality

What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to the mind? Our unity is full of wonder which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive. ↗

— Ken Levine

#unity #unity

I pattern my actions and life after what I want. No two people are alike. You might admire attributes in others, but use these only as a guide in improving yourself in your own unique way. I don't go for carbon copies. Individualism is sacred! ↗

— Richard Chamberlain

#admire #after #alike #attributes #carbon

Man is an end in himself. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#life #objectivism #philosophy #success #life

I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so fuckin' heroic. ↗

— George Carlin

#hero #heroism #individualism #individuality #nature