Things I probably didn’t think I’d ever write: Check out this remarkable column by Deborah Hill Cone.
The unceasing propaganda in our time for the individual seems deeply suspect to me now. “Individuality becomes more and more a synonym for selfishness,” Susan Sontag said. I used to take pride in my independence, toughness, my very badness. But that seems sad from where I stand today. It’s not weak to care or to acknowledge you need other people.
This is the fundamental difference between the left and right: whether we understand ourselves as part of a community, or as pure individuals locked in eternal jealous combat (and dammit I really, really need to write that review of Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?). With any luck, over the next three nine years of Labour-led government more people will follow DHC’s path and realise that the self-centred narrative we’ve been sold for the past thirty years has not served us well, and does not reflect who we really are: social creatures who depend upon each other and are stronger together.
Stephanie Rodgers 