ok thing i Noticed something while i was cleaning the bathroom (good time to think about things)

it seems to me that there used to be an aggressive anti-conformity streak associated with the left. yes it was often lip service and "I want to be different. just like everyone else"

but at this point the left seems to me to be dominated by people who are really concerned with Following Rules and specifically people who are very concerned with the development and feeding of their own internal Cop's

so what happened eh

i think this kind of at least purported anticonformity line maybe started to wane in the bush years or perhaps the 90s

it had gone mainstream by then of course. i remember watching government PSAs about how it was cool to be different, by the early 90s

in this period in time you could have a cartoon show character whose personality was being an antisocial snot hero. i offer up Sonic the Hedgehog and nintendos original conception of Link

one story that you could tell is that once the left gained cultural ascendency it was actually quite inimical to its interests to promote individualism

compare the Strange New Respect the cultural right gets for individualist arguments whenever theyre gonna lose on something

another one is that its some kind of generational cycle

boomers rebelled in individualist language against the stifling conformity of the 50s when everyone watched the same three tv stations

but then atomization continued apace and soon there was no Establishment left to rebel against. we can all swear now and look at porn. Oh No

perhaps The Establishment, Long Divided, Must Unite

anyway i dont pretend to have a clear explanation for this but as someone who grew up when the left did at least superficially argue from an individualist perspective i feel personally betrayed and i resent everyone who has contributed to this