Ben,

You seem to be missing the larger factor in that organic bonding. That individualism fades into the sense of a larger social organism, where one is a cell in the larger body. It isn’t just that people are bonded, but that they are part of a larger whole. Like bricks are part of a wall, rather than individual bricks. We think we have freedom in autonomy, but in this capitalist economy, that just makes us more interchangeable and replaceable, in the ultimate goal of turning everything into notational value. The God of the bottomline. The ideal as absolute.

One thing this larger organism gives is more freedom from the fear of mortality, as the bonding means more of a hive mind, so individualism is more about one’s role and place in the community and flowing through the stages of life, of first being an aware child, like a stem cell, then settling into the role most suited to our skills, then, surviving far enough, being one to sit back and pass on one’s knowledge. All in a larger cycle, not just as an discrete, autonomous individual, with few real roots into our reality. Being fed factory processed foods, factory processed entertainment and sensing that we too are simply products, that as soon as we question the machine, are rejected.

It is we who are the zombies. Look at Biden. He fits the role, so he is the one. It doesn’t matter that he is a husk of the person he once was, only that he served the machine well.

Which is a sign that the larger system is becoming a scab on the larger organism and slowly peeling away, as it becomes ever more rigid and unyielding in its forms.