Isabel Rhoten

Early human communities developed from thriving agrarian settlements. In thriving settlements, an increase in agricultural production enabled some people to pursue work unrelated to agriculture. This generated specialized labor, opportunities for trade, an increase in population, and socioeconomic stratification. Somewhere, underneath the heaps of agricultural achievement, seeds of individualism were sewn. Of course, the term wouldn’t come into play until the 19th century (along with its prevailing moral philosophy), but that shouldn’t exempt the possibility of earlier origins. Today, the notion of individualism is alive and well, penetrating American society with its sharp blade of self-interest. But the primary challenge of individualism has shifted. On one hand, early human groups asserted personal identity through labor-driven advancements within isolated settlements. Contemporary groups, on the other hand, rely on digital tools to maintain a sense of individuality and especially to communicate that individuality across the infinite swallow of cyberspace. Ironically, it is the very technology we cling to that threatens to obliterate our originality by grouping, influencing, and molding us into agents of merchandise. There’s a quote by Richard Siken that fits nicely: “You realize you’re a thing—taking up space and casting a shadow—you’re a dot, a blip on the screen, something graphable hurtling irreversibly through space-time on a trajectory set in motion by events that happened long before you were born.” I’ve often felt like a blip on the screen, incapable of emancipating myself from the online void. Maybe because my very identity is entangled in this long, unraveling dance with my phone. Maybe it’s that the distinction between digital culture and culture in the physical world is blurring. Or maybe it’s because who we are online somehow matters more. If that’s the case, despite so many of us voicing our opposition, we should ask ourselves: To whom do our lives matter most?