Comradeship // Freechat

To each their own. I think everyone needs some form of community and family, even if it's not people you are directly related to. No one is an island and living isolated from others means you are more vulnerable and more easily exploitable. Everyone needs someone they can depend on when they are going through a difficult time. Alienation and hyper-individualism under capitalism is not something to glamorize, it is something that must be fought with any means one has, if only for the sake of one's own mental well-being. Oftentimes it is that very same culture of hyper-individualism that makes it difficult to live with other people because the society around us does not encourage co-operation but conditions us to egoism and competition.

It also makes it much harder to mobilize people for collective action, or to teach them solidarity and a mentality compatible with socialism if they are too used to living in their little isolated bubble and only ever thinking about their own wants and needs. It is no coincidence that the nuclear family has been so heavily pushed by capital in the last century to replace the more communal lifestyles of the past. And now people are being broken down into even smaller and even more isolated units. Divide and rule has always been an effective strategy for the ruling class to maintain control, as is distracting people with material treats and entertainment.

What also has to be taken into account is that more and more people might be having to convince themselves that they never wanted a family in the first place when perhaps the reality is that they simply can't afford one. Costs of living are so out of control in many western countries that having children and being able to give them a good life has become a privilege for the wealthy, and telling yourself that you never wanted them is a sort of a coping mechanism to deal with that powerlessness. "The grapes were sour anyway." Of course i don't want to generalize. It is perfectly legitimate to decide that you don't want kids or a partner, but at the very least the option should be materially available to everyone so that a truly free choice can be made.