The Spook of Belonging

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

This essay is inspired by the Preamble of the United States Constitution, the sacred cow of political convenience. “We the People” comes  at the expense of the individual’s autonomy. This is true for any nation, society, community, party, or group that rests on belonging. Individuals are conditioned to desire belonging, whether to a tribe, a society, a community, a nation, or a collective. To remain in those collectives, one must sacrifice one’s ownness, one’s unique individuality. One must renounce their own uniqueness to serve the Egoism of the collective. The fear of not belonging to something higher can terrorize the individual into losing one's own sense of who one is. In seeking power over others religious and political actors use that fear for their own self-interests and benefit. Here I seek to show that belonging is a tyrant.

 

The Many Phantoms 

Nations, societies, religions, political parties, collective identity, and humanity are socially constructed phantoms which bind the individual to conformity through obligations and expectations of belonging. An identity is imposed on the individual, turning them into property of the collective. All are based on what is best for  a “We” or “Us.” Individuality is at best conditional and at worse nonexistent based on the will of the phantoms. The phantoms can act for their own self-interests but the individual better not. How dare the individual have one's own cause!

The Nation/State

As Max Stirner observed:

“Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does the nation care for that? By the manure of their corpses the nation comes to "its bloom"! The individuals have died "for the great cause of the nation," and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and - has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.” 

The Nation-State  is the most bloodthirsty of collectives. It is  built on the sacrifice of individuals for its own egoistic desires. The blood of patriots is spilled for the Nation’s cause. which ultimately boils down to profit for corporate shareholders and politicians. Their human sacrifices line pockets with blood money. 

There is no way to escape being owned by a nation. If you don’t like the one you are born in, you cannot simply be stateless; you must become the property of another. Nothing about this arrangement is voluntary. 

They steal agency. 

Religion

Religion is another collectivistic trap of the individual. It is a form of collective mind control and enslavement to a moral cause. Churches, synagogues and mosques all impose moral codes onto the individual. Through superstition and guilt one submits oneself for the benefit of some higher essence. One cannot value their own desires, but must instead value the desires of some deity, leader, or institution. Even God is not immune to being defined –  God is merely a human construct of those afraid of their own ego. 

Identity 

Identity is a trap. To identify with or as something is to reduce yourself to belonging. 

A national identity makes you property of the spook of the Nation. 

A gender or racial identity enslaves you to the spook of that particular gender or race. 

A political identity binds you to the ideology of a particular movement. In such roles, one must not think for oneself but only repeat the tenets of the group.

This is especially true in the United States. Since the beginning, individuals have enslaved themselves to political and or religious identity for fear of not belonging. Identity has always been central to the collectivist mindset. 

Political Parties/Unions

Belonging to a political party binds you to its ideology and agenda. Political parties are the political equivalent of religious cults. No one thinks for themselves. 

Political rhetoric is parroted without critical thought. The electoral process robs individuals of decision-making, as so-called representatives impose laws regardless of what individuals want or value. Phantoms like “safety” and “security” are used as control devices, while representatives exempt themselves. Rule of law just means some people get certain privileges others do not. 

Take Donald Trump for instance: convicted on 34 counts of fraud, yet not imprisoned like anyone else would be. Why? Qualified immunity. Collectivism is hypocrisy.

To Belong

To belong is to be identified, legible, and defined. You are no longer “you” but what others define you as. You are the “good” or “bad” citizen. The “good” or “bad” employee. You are “normal” or “ not normal.” 

To belong is to be owned. You are property. To belong binds you to fixed ideas. It binds you to roles no one asked for. Belonging is a clever phantom. 

It plays with emotions. deploys identity as its trap, manipulating your sense of self worth If you don't do as expected, you are  worthless and don't belong.  Belonging prevents you from being who you are. It forces you into a fixed identity rather than a fluid or flexible self. 

Belonging and the Illusion of Individuality

The cleverest trick of society has played is the illusion of individualism. Everyone is told they are an individual. Everyone is told they can “be whatever they want to be.” But there is always a catch.. 

You may be “individual” only within limits. You must still believe in what the majority believes. You must perform individualism within safe parameters. 

You can be what you want, but only if it is approved. Individualism must serve the “greater good” or the interests of those who profit. You may not defy social morality.  

You cannot truly be who you are, because others, afraid of their own authenticity, demand a performance of yourself that is acceptable.. 

You must vote—always for one party or another—even if you don’t care to. You must be patriotic to some phantom, even if it is contrived. You must worship idols and sacrifice yourself to them, though sacred cows never sacrifice themselves.. 

So whatever “individualism” you are allowed is only a performance. But don’t you dare be the egoist those sacred cows are.

Consequences 

So what are the consequences? What happens when one’s ownness is stolen? Well… resentment builds against those imposing arbitrary expectations and definitions, but also against oneself. And that resentment can spiral into nihilism. 

Instead of recognizing that life has no inherent meaning, but can be shaped into one’s own creation, individuals conclude that no meaning is possible. They see self-definition as pointless. This drives them into dangerous fixed ideas. 

Robbed of personal agency(or “ownness,” as Stirner would say) people lose the desire to be responsible for themselves. They look outward for something to replace it. This leads them into dangerous ideologies like nationalism or religious cults. Instead of reclaiming their ownness, they fall back into the collectivist trap of belonging. 

Where does violence come from? From the spook of belonging, from fixed ideas indoctrinated by collectives. From the continued renunciation of self “for the good of the group” and never receiving anything in return. From the robbing of agency to appease those too indoctrinated to liberate themselves. Tragedies result when individuals renounce themselves to the point of self-annihilation and cease seeing themselves in others, causing psychological issues. Those issues could lead to a tendency to act out, sometimes violently in a self deluded attempt to claim back one's agency but in the end one is just serving another fixed idea. The individual ends up never being one’s own but a shell of oneself. 

What to do?

So what should one do? Should we reject all association? Should we abandon social interaction? No. No one should do anything except according to their own desire. However, that desire is what one owns but is not owned by. Ownness, as I see it, is gaining complete agency over oneself from all external authorities, real or imagined. 

Max Stirner said:

“It is possible I can make very little of myself; but this little is everything, and better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State."

Who you are is not defined by anything nor anyone outside of yourself. Every attempt of others to define you is an absurdity as you are always more than merely contrived definitions. Any “what” will never fully grasp the “who” that is your own. No identity, no party, no religion, no society, no Nation and no God will ever grasp the “who” that you create through the Unique. 

“I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.” 

-Max Stirner