There’s a real mythology, especially in the US but also to some extent in Canada, Australia and other places founded on colonialism, that we all need to be rugged individualists and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, etc. Taken to its logical extreme, this is a recipe for disaster, as we are seeing unfold in our time of climate change and rising fascism. The idea that individual rights are the only ones that matter, that the public good and the care of the weak and vulnerable are to be left to charity and the goodwill of the strong and powerful, is as pernicious as it is common.
There is certainly something to be said for taking responsibility for one’s own actions and growing into the best people we can be, utilising the gifts we were given to do meaningful work in the world. One of the joys of becoming an adult is the feeling of independence, the freedom to make one’s own life decisions (and one’s own mistakes!). Independence, however, does not mean isolation. We all thrive best when we live in communities of mutual support and love, while performing meaningful work for the good of all.
This is not how our society is currently structured, as we lurch from one calamity to another in this late capitalist stage of our post-industrial history. The top of the hierarchy, at least in the remnants of the European empires, is held by cis, white, heterosexual, Christian males. They are expected to be stoic, self-sufficient, focused on the acquisition of wealth and the domination of women, and their only permitted emotional expressions are rage and violence.
While this model of toxic masculinity is dehumanising for these particular men, it is, of course, much worse for everyone else who shares the world with them – BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) of all genders, LGBTQ+ people and religious minorities, and anyone who can become pregnant, regardless of race or other characteristics. All of these people are expected to donate their bodies and their labour for the benefit of the few at the top, and are met with violence and degradation if they refuse. The “culture wars” of our time are the epic struggle between those who are attempting to maintain this hierarchy (including many white women and BIPOC, for their own reasons), and those who believe that every human is deserving of dignity and support.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. – John Donne
This well-known paragraph by the Elizabethan metaphysical poet John Donne was written near the end of his eventful life, as he contemplated his own approaching death. As a product of his time, his concern was only with men, but we can extend it by appreciating the humanity of every person, all made in the image of the Divine, all deserving of love, life and respect, in every stage of life.
The bell tolls for all of us. Let’s be sure to listen.