Thrust Into It All; The Individual Defined by Culture and Circumstance
The Anglo-American tradition has been defined by a certain naivete about individual choice for centuries. Fantastical notions about “individual autonomy” are deeply entrenched in our cultural and political discourse, and inform much about conventional wisdom on a wide range of matters, from the student loan crisis, the proliferation and saturation of pornography in our society, to many other issues of the day, if not all of them. Many if not most really believe the individual has absolute free agency, and is capable of and even likely able to make decisions independent and sovereign from the time and place that envelops the individual and the society to which he belongs. Almost invariably, such discourse, if one can call it that, will devolve into tired slogans about “individual responsibility” and “personal choice.”
The choices the individual—indeed, individuals as part of a society and a product of a particular, time, place, and cultural milieu—are so drastically limited by culture and other externalities as to be nigh unfathomable, even for those who know better. In Sein und Zeit, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger expounded on this by formulating the concept of Geworfenheit. Often translated as “thrownness”—but better described by this author as the state of being thrust into—this concept pertains to all the external factors that limit, constrain, and define the individual and the trajectory any individual’s life is likely to take. Through this prism, so enlightening, but also so very alien to our own Anglo-American philosophical, cultural, and political traditions, one is able to discern just how limited and constrained our “individual choices” are. It also reveals that some may really have no choice at all.
While ruminating on this concept, this author has often reflected on how the time, manner, and place he was born into has influenced or determined the choices he has made, makes now, and will make in the future, the things he “chooses” to like and enjoy, things he regards as passions, or things that are a very important part of his life. Two examples come to mind, seemingly innocuous, but actually very revealing.
Since Middle School, this author has loved the music of the Cure, at least up through Disintegration. “Just Like Heaven” was played on the radio and MTV and once I heard it, their music would forever after be a part of my life. First I bought Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me on tape cassette (readily available at all music stores and even drug stores, K-Mart and the like), then Standing on a Beach (with B Sides), then Faith. Then Seventeen Seconds and Pornography. This very quickly led to exposure and interest in other, related artists and subgenres throughout my adolescence and adult life, culminating in a lifelong interest in various Indie-Alternative genres(before alternative was overcome with the grunge craze) select industrial and related subgenres such as EBM, aggrotech, martial industrial, neo-folk and the like. Everyone thinks this is a choice, and, in a very limited sense, and to a very limited extent, this is true.1
But to the extent I or any young person in 1987 or the eighties chooses to like something like a musical artist, a popular movie or television show, or a mode of dress, that choice, if not made for him, is drastically limited and defined by the particular time and circumstance that envelops him, and is so limited in ways that we can scarcely fathom or comprehend. This and all choices to like a particular musical artist or genre of music could never be divined by some uncanny force of individual autonomy. It was a choice made available to me and others who lived at that time, place, and particular cultural milieu. “If Just Like Heaven” was not broadcast on MTV or the radio, if albums by The Cure were not made available to me by the recording industry for purchase, it would not have been possible for me to hear this music in those formidable years of early adolescence and decide to like it (or dislike it) in the first place.
This author made a similar exercise in reference to a fondness for, as silly as it may sound, G1 Transformers. As a child, my friends and I played with and collected the toys and watched the Rainbow animated series that was not much more than a long-form advertisement for them. I was, quite obviously, a child of the 80s. My fondness for this toy line endures decades after. As I write this essay, I have on two shelves above my desk a number of premium Masterpiece figures that render these characters in their G1 depictions, but with improved design and technology that is cost prohibitive for children and was unavailable decades ago.
Do I really choose to like Transformers in an absolute sense, or was that a choice made for me by the time, circumstance, and place I was born into? To the extent it is a choice, it is a very limited one, really a multiple choice, a drop-down menu with prepopulated options determined by the time, circumstance, and other externalities I was born into. A youngster in 1984 America could “decide” to like GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and space or other legos. He could not choose to like Power Rangers, Exo Squad, or another toy line from the future because they did not exist then and, absent a parent introducing specimens from toy lines from the past that are no longer produced or widely available for sale, a child of the 80s would be very unlikely to be enthralled with the toys from the childhood of his parents or grandparents, which would in any case be a different sort of externality one is born into. I was offered the choice to like Transformers insofar as they were made available in the States, promoted in advertising (both short term and long run animated series), because my family, whatever drawbacks and tribulations it afflicted on me (there were many) bought them for me on Christmas, my birthday, or allowed me to buy them with an allowance. My friends also liked them much more than say He-Man, another external factor given how important peer pressure and influence is.
Interesting ruminations, but seemingly of no consequence, at least to some. But then I ask my readers to consider, as I have considered, the life of my late grandfather, a man born in Telluride country in Colorado in 1919, who served in the United States Air Force, and was to be sent off to Great Britain as a B-17 belly gunner to bomb German cities and civilians, but was held back to be an instructor state side. He was a man who lived and died with historical interpretations typical of those of his generation, including apologism for air raid campaigns that deliberately targeted German civilians, among other things that came to be a source of disagreement in my adolescence and adulthood as I became interested in German culture and history and learned to speak the language as best I could given the parameters and limitations of the education system made available to me.
But did he really make a choice for this life trajectory, or was it one predetermined simply by being born not in Silesia, or Baden-Wurttemberg, or Saxony-Anhalt, but in Colorado or elsewhere in the States in 1919? Clearly the latter conclusion is correct, a conclusion that becomes self-evident when one considers the “choices” he would have made as an exact identical clone born not in the States but in Germany in 1919. This one circumstance determines, among so many other things what his mother tongue would be: German or American English—all the more dramatic when one considers how one’s mother tongue is the very firmware of the human mind. It would also determine his awareness and understanding of the ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles and the myriad depravities it inflicted on the German people. The coverage of the German language newspapers on Stalin’s killing fields in the 20s and 30s, which to a large extent were simply not written about in the English language at the time, would also inform the worldview of such a hypothetical young man coming of age not in Telluride country but in Germany before, during, and after the rise of Hitler. And he would not have fought against Hitler, he would, barring truly exceptional circumstances, served in the Wehrmacht or possibly even the Waffen SS. If such an individual were to survive the war and even years as a POW in Soviet captivity, life experiences and the cultural milieu formed in West Germany might change his perspective from what it was before and during the war, but such an individual would never have the same perspective as an American of that generation.
Despite our myths about individual choice and individual autonomy, these considerations inform the true nature of the human condition and offer insight into so very many of our troubles. Consider for example the Maurnice Declue, Kaylee Gain matter, in which a black adolescent girl and a white girl, both fifteen, were in a school fight, briefly, before Declue, weighing considerably more than her adversary, overpowered Gain after a couple of punches and then straddled on top of her, grabbed her head and bashed the back of her skull against a curb, creating a life threatening condition and, even after surviving this ordeal, will likely render Gain brain damaged for the rest of her life.
Aside from attending a majority black school, Gain, being part of the cultural milieu that envelops her, as we all are, had a black boyfriend and was, quite predictably, enamored with all the trash “culture” and ghetto black “culture” that our society and “culture” encourage. She also comes from a broken family, the details of which are too involved to discuss at length but must be mentioned only in passing.
At 15, did Gain really make an individual choice to do these things that precipitated this catastrophic incident, or were these “choices” to a very large degree, if not absolutely, made for her by simply being born in the time, place, and circumstance that she was thrust into, as explicated through Heidegger’s concept of Geworfenheit? Of course, these choices would be incomprehensible, utterly impossible, for a genetic clone born not in the America of today, but in the 1950s or even 1850s.
Another example comes to mind in the Frontline Documentary The Lost Children of Rockdale County from 1999, which recounts the outbreak of syphilis among teens and even pre-teens as young as twelve. The documentary recounts how hyper promiscuity, including not just rapid turnover of sex partners but even group sex, accelerated the spread of the venereal disease. It also discusses how, in this largely white, affluent Atlanta suburban area, there was a distinct racial component to such depravity, with young white girls not just fucking their white counterparts, but blacks also.
Were these choices made, divined from the spirit of individual autonomy as if the individual were a sovereign entity immune from outside forces, a person as an island, or were the “choices” and “preferences” determined and dictated by the cultural milieu in which these youngsters found themselves thrust in, including a subversive youth culture that touts “black as cool,” “anti-racism as virtue,” and above all vulgar rap music which this author would suggest is not really music at all? Note this clip, in which three blonde teens, 13-14, recount the lyrics of a “song” called “Luv in ya mouth”
The excerpted portion of this charming little ditty reads as follows.
I take 3 little bitches and I put 'em in a line
I take 4, 5 ,6 and blow 'dem hoes mine
It'll take 1 more before I go for mine
Then 7 bitches get fucked at the same time
Ichi ni san shi, she can suck a ding dong
All day, all night, all evenin' long
She said she never done it, she said she never tried
She's sittin' there tellin' her mother fuckin' lie
Now, how many licks does it take to make my dick split?
Well, not many licks if the bitch is a good trick
Now, any niggas can talk to a bitch and get the bitch to fuck
But how many niggas can talk to a bitch
And get they dick sucked?
Like me, a pimp that you never saw
As explicated at length above, these girls came to like this and other such “music” because they were (and continue to be) enveloped in a particular cultural milieu where it not only exists but thrives. They could not like or even know of such things in the 1950s, or if raised in an Amish plantation, or were born in Germany in the 20s and 30s and thus compelled to join the Bund deutscher Mädel.
Culture matters. Probably nothing matters more than culture and the cultural milieu that envelops the individual. And yet (and of course) mainstream, establishment conservatism has regarded matters of culture with quiet if not open disdain, offering no serious resistance to mass media conglomerates and players in the recording industry from promulgating these and other undesirable elements in our society and culture. Nor has mainstream conservatism cared about the institution of higher education, which has subverted the Great Canon of Western Literature and replaced it inferior authors that represent oppressed and marginalized peoples, just as it has perverted and ruined all of the humanities.
How dedicated and unique individuals are to foster a subversive underground culture that can rival and ultimately supplant the incumbent culture is an interesting albeit difficult topic, presenting a problem for which there may no longer be a solution. The problems before us, which threaten the very future of Europe and the Occident, may indeed be intractable and irreversible. But the first step to any task, great or small, is to understand the thing itself. Understanding the importance of culture and the cultural milieu that envelops each and every one of us—and how this limits what our philosophical, cultural, and political traditions deem as “individual autonomy”—is the first critical step in understanding this problem and so many of our troubles that emanate from this one phenomenon. There is no solution—no salvation—without an understanding of this critical albeit largely foreign concept to far too many.
The author, under a different name, wrote this article for Radix discussing how goth, alternative sub cultuires are an example of what Kevin MacDonald has decribed as implicitly white subcultures.