this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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It's more closely related to atomization than individualism.
Pre-1950's America was still very individualistic but they also had third spaces and more close knit communities. Without meaningful connection, those who are able to hookup achieve a facsimile of intimacy. Those who aren't able to get that turn to escort services, onlyfans, and patriarchy etc etc. This compounds the problem until society breaks down.
Of course people do have casual sex for just fun just as they did throughout history. But the major shift towards that isn't because people changed their minds suddenly.
What do you attribute the major shift towards hook-up culture?
Based on what you are saying the culprit seems to be capitalist’s culture of alienation and the privatization of everything including hanging out spaces, which have very expensive prices to do anything communal. The way I see it, social media is just the last thing people can do for free that involves other people. I wouldn't say that social media is to blame, but capitalism is to blame.
What do you mean by “atomization”? I have never heard that term before.
The separating of humans into individual elements, or atoms, such that they're disconnected from each other.
Basically, breaking the social bonds that once held human society together. A community is very strong, a group of individuals with no connection to each other is weak. What union-busting does to the workplace, atomization does to society at large. Individualism is tangential but not quite the same. Individualism is a sort of ideology that things should be this way. They should be self-reliant and depend on themselves etc etc. Atomization is the state being unable to form meaningful social relationships due to isolation.