by Jeb Smith
Whenever I hear politicians, government educators, advertisers, media types and the like tell young Americans to “go find themselves,” I always wonder why. What is behind it, what is this perspective seemingly unique to white liberal societies, and what is the intent to push it on youth? It is much more than a mere individual opinion or thought; it is rehearsed, repeated, promoted, and more.
As I have written in the past, it is in part, directly tied to the capitalism and authoritarianism of democratic states. During the Middle Ages, people generally lived in self-sufficient, small villages of like-minded individuals; a “united whole” is how Thomas Aquinas described it. The goal was for the villages to be close-knit communities, united in faith and family, providing for themselves. They were content and happy, enjoying leisure and finding support from family and God.
Isolated, self-sufficient local villages and family tribal network economies cannot be manipulated by outside, powerful monopolies, whether of the left or the right, who need to pull these bonds apart. Early capitalists therefore desired people to be relocated from the rural areas where they lived to cities where they worked in factories, dependent on their bosses for labor and survival. And so long as the worker was at the factory, he could no longer provide or produce for himself. Meaning he now had to purchase basic needs like food, housing, clothing, appliances, and more from other capitalists.
These objects were also now produced in a factory where workers toil under a boss. All this hourly toil provided taxation for those in government to hand out to their backers and create, depending on the state, welfare or subsidies to shape the economy and culture further. Laws were passed that put isolated, self-sufficient local communities at a disadvantage, driving millions more to the factories.
The left generally despises the family unit and its negative influences as it tends to transmit faith, family values, and so on. So, while the parents worked in the factories, the left placed children in state-sponsored daycares, such as public schools, or activities under the guidance of trained teachers and certified tutors. The right received and controlled the body; the left the mind. The income they would control between them.
Find Yourself
To sell the dismantling of local communities, the loss of family and tribal ties, and the erosion of leisure as positive developments, both the capitalist and socialist desire the youth to seek higher education and become isolated individuals.
During the Middle Ages, there was a mix of privately owned land by individuals, families, extended families, local communities, and rented land from lords and churches or monasteries. The “family” was the extended family. A capitalist understanding of a family of two parents and children arose only after people were removed from the agrarian societies of the Middle Ages to live in tight spaces, with room enough only for strict domestic partnerships.
In capitalism, the individual is expected to own land, as well as cars and other property, leading to the need for more work hours, money, and additional purchases, ultimately seeking happiness through material possessions. The more alone individuals feel on the inside the better it is for capitalism, as they seek happiness or at least an escape through purchasing vacations and objects such as electronics and other material things, to escape reality, their loneliness, loss of family, tribe, and connection to God.
Both the left and the right want you displaced from your local community. They encourage you to “try everything” (which involves moving, and having no community identity or roots in a community or extended family), and to buy everything for yourself. You must keep trying to find happiness by experiencing everything and trying it all.
Of course, you will constantly be bombarded with advertisements letting you know of the newest product, the most up-to-date version of a phone or gadget that you must have, which will finally make you content. A new piece of clothing that will make you feel beautiful on the inside and happy about yourself on the outside. The object you bought just a few years ago, which promised the same, is now rejected as outdated.
What you are missing and what you would have found through a family, and a like-minded community, that brought you up so you felt loved by others and by God (thus making material objects irrelevant) will be lost, driving on your search for happiness through money and objects, more work and, inevitably, more taxation.
But Never Settle – Never be Content
If you were to travel the world in an attempt to “find yourself,” you would find yourself constantly traveling! There will always be more places to explore and discover, new jobs to try, and new things to learn and experience. No matter who you are with, where you live, or what job you do, you might always be happier somewhere else. And even if you do find a better situation where you are a better fit, you will become negative in your views, wondering what some other place is like; the grass somewhere else will always seem greener. In all likelihood, you will eventually spiral into unhappiness and disappointment, even if the new situation had initially been satisfying.
A united whole of self-sufficient and contented like-minded individuals who place their authority in the church, the Bible, local families, and friends is nearly impossible to coerce. They do not need politicians’ saving grace. If they are happy, they need nothing; they have attained the laws, society, and lifestyle they desire, and achieved a bit of heaven on earth. The politician’s job is to separate, isolate, and make vulnerable, and then take action to solve the issues so created.
Politicians desire you to be discontented with where you are and what you have because otherwise they cannot advertise their new agenda as improving your life; you will already be happy. Happy, contented, self-sufficient people are highly resistant to outside forces seeking to alter their ways or offering them progress, no matter how it is presented.
In order to be relevant, to be needed, to maintain their power and position, politicians need you to be disconnected. They need there to be issues so they can find a solution. If you do not have any, they will create them and, over time, ensure ongoing ones are ingrained in society.
Likewise, a capitalist society needs you to disconnect in order to keep purchasing material objects in search of happiness. What is sold as the must-have this year will be regarded as outdated, old-fashioned, and needing replacement just a few short years later.
So, a spiritual hole is created through the destruction of a local community and the sundering of close family and personal ties, and a life once free from politics, strife, and anger is now subject to a subpar, never-filling but endless promise of the new, new places, new people, and new material objects; one that leaves people always searching, but never finding what they’re looking for.
You can keep searching, look the world over, isolate yourself, and achieve everything society tells you to, but that dark spiritual truth, that hole in your heart you are trying to fill, will not be satisfied by those who desire your money; its healing comes from family, close community, love, and God alone.
Practical Distributism 