The aim of this essay is to develop an understanding of the atomized individual. The term refers to a mode of existence available to all of us. This mode is associated with a style of reasoning that can, at times, be unaware of the mismatch between its promised solutions and the solutions it truly offers.[1] To illustrate this point, I will connect the concept of the atomized individual with recent discussions of “the meaning crisis,” arguing that the reasoning style of the atomized individual, while promising solutions to the crisis, actually reinforces it. My motive for writing this essay, therefore, is grounded in the belief that the atomized individual is not equipped to solve its own problem of atomization and, as a consequence, requires contact with—and the ability to transition into—other modes of being. In short, it is important to know what to expect from the atomized individual, in order to dissociate its true and false promises. Let me begin with a first conjecture.

The atomized individual is a position within the sociocultural domain.

Despite its detachment from others, the atomized individual is a mode of relating to others and the world. We cannot help but exist in relation to others, culture, conventions, norms, and the rest of world. What we are, therefore, at a given moment can be described as a place among other places within the sociocultural order. This is true even when what we are appears as an absence of relation, or a refusal, or an inability. The position of the atomized individual is characterized by its distance and detachment. That distance, however, ought to be viewed as a way of relating to the world. Recognizing this leads us away from seeing the atomized individual as simply isolated, and it prepares us to ask, “What is the relationship between the atomized individual and others?”

The atomized individual emerges as a reaction.

What kind of reactions could constitute atomization? I am atomized when I have lost trust in others, or when I believe that trust is unavailable. I am atomized when facing an excessive amount of deception or noise. In other words, the atomized individual could emerge, at first, as a movement toward a relatively safe position of distrust, a retreat, in a moment of alertness, or in a moment of questioning. When we trust a situation, we do not question it, and the desire to know more about it does not feature prominently in our minds. Given the absence of trust, atomization is entangled with the desire to know. Consequently:

The atomized individual is epistemically burdened.

The excessive burden shows up in skepticism, a desire to inspect, and a desire to know. A trusting community means we are able to share cognitive burdens with other people. In contrast, as atomized individuals, we are tasked with acquiring additional information, and with providing additional justification for our beliefs. When I am with others, especially those I trust, I can take at least some of what they tell me for granted. I can rely, build on, and act on their expressions. The cognitive burdens of atomization, then, consist of the inability to rely on, build upon, and act upon, the expression of others.

The atomized individual’s desire to know is attached to the false promises of connection and community.

Given our social nature and our need for affiliation, once atomized, we wish to reconnect. But, in our desire to reconnect, we overestimate the role of impersonal knowledge. A contrived example can clarify this point. Imagine that after having no contact with my brother for ten years, I hire a private investigator to acquire as much information about him as possible. Would the information help us reconnect? At best, the information would give me a practical advantage in initiating contact, perhaps allowing me to find my way into my brother’s life in a way that is convenient to him. At worst, the information could be used to subject my brother to some type of manipulative illusion, perhaps allowing me to “bump into him accidentally.” Regardless of how it is used, the information provided by the investigator, in and of itself—no matter how detailed and accurate—cannot reconnect me and my brother.

In general, atomization could accompany the felt (and false) promise that gaining more information will rekindle the lost connection to our world. The atomized individual desires to know, not only for the sake of knowledge, but to connect to others through knowing about them. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. The style of knowing that is characteristic of the atomized individual can only maintain and reinforce the distance between the individual and the rest of the world.

The promise of knowledge, furthermore, is the promise of a magical solution. What type of knowledge could be gained from a distant and detached position? The type that is formulaic and schematic. Demanding formulae means demanding a guarantee. It means demanding to know the solution prior to testing the solution in reality. It means wishing to gain confidence prior to application, prior to participation, and prior to trust. It is the demand-for-guarantee that motivates hiring the private investigator in the example above. It is the demand that wishes to solve the problem of connection from a distance.

The habits and practices of the atomized individual reinforce and deepen his or her atomization. 

Consider some of the habits of the atomized individual of our time. He or she may listen to podcasts, read self-help books, attend self-development seminars, and follow certain public intellectuals. These activities all involve entering into asymmetric relationships. A podcaster does not—and cannot afford to—have a personal interaction with his or her audience. Listening to Joe’s podcast is profoundly different from having a phone conversation with Joe. Listening to his podcast involves taking up a position as a consumer of information. It involves remaining distant and detached from him. It means being invisible and inaudible to Joe.

Given the apparent promises of atomized habits (e.g., “If I listen to these fifty lectures, or these ten books, something magical will happen”), we might neglect the practices that could truly connect us to others—taking risks, being vulnerable, and building trust through openness. The habits of the atomized individuals are based on relations that are not only asymmetrical, but also keep both parties at a safe distance from each other.

Let us consider another type of activity, which I believe is rooted in atomization and is designed to create symmetrical relations among people. I am referring to participating in so-called Empathy Circles. Although variations of this activity, under different names, can be found in different contexts, ranging from acting classes to therapeutic and clinical settings, what I have in mind specifically is the practice developed by Edwin Rutsch. In Rutsch’s design, an Empathy Circle is a group of about 2–6 participants. Each participant, at different times during the activity, takes up one of three different positions: Speaker, Active Listener, and Silent Listener. There can be one Speaker and one Active Listener (chosen by the Speaker) at any given time. After selecting the Active Listener, the Speaker begins to express him- or herself freely. The Active Listener then responds to the Speaker with the goal of letting the Speaker feel understood. Next, the Active Listener takes up the position of Speaker and the cycle continues. The Silent Listeners’ participation consists of simply listening to the on-going exchange.

Although Empathy Circles can be of immense utility when transported into an existing conflict, when they are practiced by participants who are strangers to each other, and who meet for the sole purpose of creating an Empathy Circle, they are artificial. An artificial Empathy Circle is removed from the contexts we ordinarily share with friends, strangers, or family members. Within an Empathy Circle, the expression of empathy is the explicit goal of the group. A situation wherein no other goal competes with empathy is useful for demonstrating what empathy feels like, but such a situation reflects neither the challenges nor the outcomes of empathy in our personal relationships (family, friends, colleagues, and others whose life history fuse with ours). The neat delineation of positions (Speaker, Active Listener, and Silent Listeners) and the clear and strict rules are also not representative of ordinary situations, where there are no clear separation between positions and where we must negotiate, implicitly or explicitly, the positions we adopt and assign to each other.[2] The risks and surprises ordinarily associated with empathy have been removed from Empathy Circles, which makes them models of empathy—abstract and idealized—designed for knowing about empathy. Empathy circles are laboratories that remind us what communication would be like if, for instance, empathy was the goal of communication. Based on what I said previously, therefore, activities like Empathy Circling are, in fact, congruent with atomization.

Let us turn to another example which is familiar to most of us. How should we think about the experience of being called, by name, by a barista at Starbucks? The barista is, indeed, calling my name, holding a cup with my name on it. But, in an important sense, the call isn’t real. It is a pretend play, a copy of something that is absent in the interaction. The interaction is designed to feel like, to remind us of, being at a café where the staff knows you. We could also imagine shaking hands with a public “intellectual” after one of their sold-out events. I stand in line with a hundred other people to meet the great thinker. By the time I reach him, he will even ask my name and might repeat it after me. Doesn’t this ritual resemble our Starbucks scenario?

To build trust and connection, risk is necessary. Risk implies the possibility of failure and pain. One must let go of the desire to know in advance. The illusion of connecting-by-knowing promises that we can connect from a safe distance, consequently reinforcing our separation. Atomization is not inherently bad, though we should not expect from it what it cannot deliver—connection and community.

There is another way we could describe the relatively risk-free position of the atomized individual.

The atomized individual is defined in part through his or her inaction.

It is difficult to act under severe uncertainty, especially once one has prioritized inspecting and knowing about the situation over risk-taking and getting involved. Another factor that contributes to inaction is the excessive self-consciousness associated with atomization. The promise of connecting-by-knowing is another cause of postponing action. The kind of connection that comes before knowing as tied to the fundamental basis of human action—commitment and loyalty. Loyalty is not an attribute of the atomized individual. It is, therefore, not surprising, that:

The atomized individual keeps recreating and rediscovering the meaning crisis.

A position that emerges out of distrust, the desire for inspection, distance, and detachment is synonymous with a position in which one encounters the so-called meaning crisis. The phrase “the meaning crisis,” which has recently been brought into popular attention by John Vervaeke (Professor of Psychology at University of Toronto) and his colleagues, refers to the phenomenon of finding oneself within collapsed sociocultural orders.[3] We face the meaning crisis, when we feel unsure about the laws, stories, and norms that are supposed to govern our lives, when we feel distant from others and experience a lack of belonging. In January 2019, Vervaeke launched a 50-part series of YouTube lectures, entitled Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

It would be an error to search for a one-time, universal, and engineered fix that is predesigned to overcome atomization and the crisis of meaning. The search for a formula is rooted in the attitude that favors guarantees and safety, inaction and distrust, wishing to be informed prior to action. This explains the unusual appeal of the self-help “experts.” The “expert” him- or herself remains at a distance, supporting the atomized individual’s separation, writing a recipe and antidotes (e.g., “Rules for Life”) for masses of individuals without substantial interaction with any of them.

We might feel disappointed with the experts, perhaps similar to how we might feel disappointed that the information provided by the private investigator does not bring us closer to a family member. What comes after the disappointment is a reinforced sense of distrust, which re-establishes and affirms atomization. Let me speak for a moment about my own distrust of formulaic solutions.

John Vervaeke recently proposed a solution to the meaning crisis that could be explained and engineered from within a secular, scientific worldview (See Lecture 46 in the series). Judging from his presentation, he expects criticism primarily directed at the terms “secular” and “scientific.” What I take issue with are the terms, “explained” and “engineered,” which imply that the crisis of meaning can be solved formulaically, based on an understanding that comes prior to action and prior to knowing the person for whom meaning has become a problem. What if the crisis of meaning cannot be solved formulaically?

What if Vervaeke’s own personal process of handling the meaning crisis, his own singular history of engagement with the crisis, is the more relevant side of the story? What if the meaning crisis cannot be solved once and for everyone, from a third-person standpoint? What if the best I can do is to tell you how I have been dealing with the crises of meaning? The final, formulaic, cognitive-scientific, third-person conclusions might be beside the point, if they fail to generalize from my past experience to your current and future experiences. We find almost no trace of autobiography in Vervaeke’s lectures. What if it is a mistake to discard the personal process, the singular life-history, that lead him to his particular conclusions? It is a choice to separate one’s conclusions from the personal process that leads one to the conclusion. And this choice should be brought into focus and re-examined. If the two cannot be meaningfully separated from each other, then engineering and explanation—which deal only with the final conclusions—are inappropriate modes of thought for transitioning out of atomization. Moreover, engineering and explanation imply asymmetric relationship between experts or engineers and consumers or followers.

If my analysis is valid, then Vervaeke’s solution is tailored to the atomized individual in a way that reinforces his or her atomization. It is apt to think of Vervaeke’s fifty-part lecture series on the history of ideas, and its long accompanying reading list, as another instance of epistemic overburdening the atomized individual.

The atomized individual has to be accepted as one mode among many modes of human being.

Once the atomized individual is formed, it will have to be accepted as a recurring theme, not as an obstacle to overcome. Likewise, the meaning crisis could also be accepted as a recurring theme, something which is grasped from the perspective of the atomized individual. Stepping out of the meaning crisis, assuming that it is our aim, does not come from more self-consciousness, more YouTube lectures, more essays, or more podcasts. I am not suggesting that the practices of the atomized individuals are undesirable. I am suggesting that they should be understood for what they are, in light of what they can and cannot achieve.

We engage in the habits and practices of the atomized individual, not to connect to others and not to create communities, but to cultivate a better sense of our atomization, to dwell in it better, to acclimatize to its solitude and its burdens, and to gain insights that emerge from distance and detachment from the objects of our thinking. We might have to accept the epistemic burdens of the atomized individual, although we do not have to accept the false promise of connecting-by-knowing and risk-free, generalized “solutions” to atomization.

In so far as atomization is a possible mode of being, with its origin in the realities of our world (noise, deceit, betrayal, and distrust), it is best not to disown it. Noticing the characteristics of the atomized individual, as a place we go, as a position within a social-cultural grid, helps us notice and remember ways of better navigating in and out of it. Likewise, we might consider not having to solve the meaning crisis once and for all, but finding better ways of navigating in and out of it.

There is probably more than one bridge between atomization and community, participation and detachment, risk and safety, meaning and crisis. What matters is finding and being able to cross a bridge between the two sides. What matters is knowing what to expect on each side. Understanding the atomized individual should, I believe, lead us away from wanting to resist or eliminate it. If there are lessons to be learned in the experience of atomization, they are lessons in bridge-building, with the aim of connecting the atomized individual to other modes of human being.

[1] For a discussion of the concept, style of reasoning, see Ian Hacking,“‘Language, truth and reason’ 30 years later,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 43, no. 4 (2012): 599–609.

[2] See, for example, Luk Van Langenhove, “The Discursive Ontology of the Social World,” In B. A. Christensen (Ed.), The Second Cognitive Revolution (Springer, Cham: 2019), pp. 63–71.

[3] John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, and Filip Miscevic, Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis (Open Book Publishers, 2017).