Trans-Individualism

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= a perspective coming from 'metamodern' philosophy

Discussion

" deeply human and personal experience is in turn created by societal processes that are largely invisible to each single person, and access­ible only through a profound and systematic sociological and psychological analy­sis of society.

So this lands us in an apparent paradox: to really see the singular hum­an being, to really respect her rights and uniqueness, we must go beyond the idea of the individual; we must see through it and strive to see how society is pre­sent within each single person as well as in the relationships through which she is born as a “self”. We go from the idea of the individ­ual (vs. “the collect­ive”), to sim­ply seeing society as an evolving, inter­linked set of transindivi­duals. This is the transpersonal perspective. It’s not just that we are each a billiard ball that “interacts” with other people. We co-emerge. Or, as the physicist-philosopher Karen Barad has put it: we intra-act.

To the metamodern activist, the rights and interests of the trans­indiv­id­ual are seen as much deep­er, more real and more important than the rights of the individual. Just like modern society scrapped the rights of the clan or the family in favor of the individual, we are now scrapping the indiv­i­dual in favor of the much more morally entitled and more analy­tic­ally valid trans­individ­ual.

The idea of the listening society serves the trans­individual: the human being is seen as more than a unique, separate life story. The idea of the trans­individual sees the human being as inseparable from her language, her deep unconscious, her relations, roles, societal positions, values, emo­tions, develop­mental psychology, biolog­ical organism and so forth. Each human being is viewed as an open and social process, a whirlwind of par­ticipation and co-creation of society. Soc­iety as a whole is viewed as a self-organizing system which creates such trans­individuals who are in turn able to recreate society.

To sum up, the idea of the individual and her rights and freedom has served us well, but now we need to move on – lest society come crashing down on us like London Bridge.

Metamodern politics, working from sincere irony, applies a trans­pers­onal perspective to society, serving the trans­individual, her rights and inter­ests. You can use the words transpersonalism and transindividualism more or less interchangeably. Just remember this: It is by looking at deep psychological issues, the inner development of each of us, and how such properties are generated within society, that we address the core of society’s problems." (http://metamoderna.org/death-to-the-individual?lang=en)