Screaming into the Void

As I wrote in my last post, I was surprised to realize that a trigger to the mental health crisis that befell me in March (for which I am now finding out that vestibular dysfunction might also have been a major contributor) was the sociopolitical catastrophe that befell the country last November. I was even more surprised at the number of people who e-mailed me to say they were experiencing a similar reaction.

At first glance, the cause seemed obvious. Trump’s election and his subsequent trampling on the values that Americans claim to treasure, abetted by a slew of bootlickers and hypocrites, many of whom, like Mike Johnson, preach their devotion to Jesus and the Bible while behaving like those who condemned Jesus to crucifixion, seem to have destroyed any moral underpinning the nation had previously claimed. Finding out you don’t have a country anymore, that you are, in effect, a refugee in your own land, is difficult to come to terms with.

While this cause and effect undeniably exists, during this journey of exploration into my own psyche, I have come to believe there is another fundamental social force at work, which I discovered in another essay by Georg Simmel, this one called “Fashion,” written in 1904.

Simmel describes two competing human tendencies that are nonetheless symbiotic, since neither can exist in the total absence of the other. The first, “imitation,” we might think of as conformity, the tendency to do what others have done in order create some sense of community. But imitation requires little thought and even less originality. “Imitation,” he writes, “gives to the individual the satisfaction of not standing alone in his actions. Whenever we imitate, we transfer not only the demand for creative activity but also the responsibility for the action from ourselves to another. Thus the individual is freed from the worry of choosing and appears simply as a creature of the group.”

Not a bad description of the MAGA crowd and ICE agents, although it clearly applies across the political spectrum.

But few are content simply to imitate. They must also find some means to express individuality. Thus, people have the dilemma of needing to both conform and to non-conform. Simmel uses fashion as his example. People will tend to dress like other people in their class or group but at the same time try to look somehow different, sometimes even outrageously so. One has only to watch the Oscars or check out photos from the Met Gala to get the idea, but hemlines, lapel widths, sports merchandise, MAGA-wear, hair styles, and a plethora of other examples both inside and outside of fashion are equally revealing.

As Simmel puts it, “The principle of adherence to given formulas, of being and of acting like others, is irreconcilably opposed to the striving to advance to ever new and individual forms of life; for this very reason social life represents a battleground, of which every inch is stubbornly contested.”

I think it may be useful, then, to view imitation as setting the boundaries of behavior and creativity as the opportunity for individual choice within those boundaries. Without creativity people are reduced to sheep; without boundaries, people are denied any sense of community and are effectively cut adrift. So, if one chooses to avoid community, or if community is snatched away, or, most significantly, if the community one chooses is not really a community at all, this quest for individuality becomes, as my psychiatrist put it, “screaming into the void.”

There are all sorts of interlocking and overlapping communities, but for this example, two are of particular importance. One of them is the sociopolitical system within which we live. Trump has destroyed what many of us took for granted, thus creating the sort of dislocation that I and most of my friends are experiencing.

Then there is the internet. It is hard to imagine a more apt example of artificial community than what is euphemistically called “social media,” but what for many is actually “antisocial media.” Much has been written about the “snapshot effect” of social media posts, which almost invariably show how much fun people are having, how happy they are, how sumptuous are their meals, or glorious and carefree their daily lives. The contrast with the life of those viewing these images can be stark and depressing, especially for younger people who are more likely to believe that these posts represent reality.

In truth, of course, the sources of all those happy posts might be unhappy, despondent, or even suicidal. Their lives might be unbroken misery and their posts a desperate effort to publicly deny what they are feeling in private. They too might be responding to a false reality they perceive others to be enjoying and wonder why they cannot be happy, carefree, and fulfilled.

So they pretend they are and dishonesty feeds on itself. Hard to imagine a more perverse community than that, nor one that prompts more self-destructive attempts at individuality.

These posts, then, are the epitome of “screaming into the void.” Social media does not allow users to fully observe their audience and they therefore cannot see the nuances of behavior that will often reveal that people might not be as ebullient as they seem, but rather are experiencing the same life pressures and stress as are they. That would be a genuine community.

The “why not me” effect has been magnified by what are called “influencers.” Influencers are essentially talentless and therefore present an even more inflated false reality that creates the illusion that anyone can do it. That, in turn, enhances the feeling that if one is not doing it, he or she is a failure.

Other than Substack, I don’t do social media, but when I heard the phrase “screaming into the void,” it instantly resonated. How to stop is the problem. For twenty years, I’ve achieved my individuality by writing critically, often very critically, about the failed promise of equal justice and the difference between what the Constitution means and self-serving interpretations by those interested only in wealth and power. But I could only do so because I remained within the boundaries of a very important community—a (largely) free and (sort of) democratic United States.

That will be a difficult community to replace.