Sonder

I am not special; neither are you. And that’s okay.

Proceeding the post war optimism of the mid 20th century, the cultural messaging of the 1990s/2000s told us we could be anything. The national ethos of the “American dream” infiltrated the media and ingrained the American psyche with notions of individual exceptionalism. In education, phrases such as “the sky’s the limit,” “you do you,” and “you can be anything” were promoted to the end of effectively facilitating entrepreneurial competition, innovation, and further serving a capitalist system. 

Growing up, regardless of age, gender, or socioeconomic upbringing, etc, a person could (theoretically) achieve everything. This idealistic narrative was present throughout my childhood with shows (to name very few) like American Idol (2002-), America’s Next Top Model (2003-), and America’s Got Talent (2006-) reinforcing the idea that success could be attained by any average joe. It simply required personal ambition, talent, and drive. 

These messages marked the shift from what Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society refers to as the previous moral obligations of “should” to the opportunity of “can,” placing the burden of freedom on the individual. People fall into a cycle of self-exploitation and optimization to maximize success and achievement. This shift fed into the meritocratic myth that individuals are responsible for their accomplishments, and that their success is attributed to their own unobstructed free will and is divorced from any consideration of the role of randomness or determinism. The self-serving bias in which people are overly confident in their abilities can act as a Darwinian edge in the game of life and can aid in outperforming those with a multifaceted perspective on success. Thus, people are encouraged to maintain an inflated view of themselves for the sake of success. 

The myth of people as special individuals is not about us. Largely, it serves a capitalist end. Being “special” means being unique and, implicitly, superior. Consumerism exploits this desire for superior worth through individualizing every facet of life as a means to express one’s uniqueness and identity. Globalization amplifies the situation by removing the limitations of traditions and culture, again placing the burden of choice on the individual in a vacuum of their desires. Customization has extended to practically every facet of life where simply walking down a supermarket aisle, one is bombarded with every label under the sun: organic, non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, calorie-free, salt-free, taste-free, etc. This overwhelming array reflects a fraction of the extent to which people are given the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other individuals through consumerism. 

Further, the self-improvement/self-optimization industries and movements, such as self-love, prey on people’s need for a sense of value often for economic profit. And the impact of this culture is reverberated in media trends such as “the main character” (as seen on TikTok) romanticizing a sense of agency and rooted in individualism. As well, even attempts at counterculturalism through appealing to alternative lifestyles have themselves been absorbed into consumerism, where capitalism sells people the aesthetic of what is colloquially deemed “alternative” and is often just a relic of past authentic movements. In effect, this system traps individuals into a crab mentality-like competition between people, fostering jealousy and envy, and reframing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships to be transactional and self-serving. 

In considering the broader context of the myth of exceptionalism, one finds it is closely tied to the foundations of western philosophy: renaissance humanism, Descartes Cartesian solipsism of  “I think, therefore I am,” Judeo-Christian values of personal responsibility, and a proclivity for viewing time as linear and inclined toward growth. These ideas are tinged with ego and self-infatuated blindness—a bias for one’s own life without considering the perspective of others, or in essence, a foundation not inclined towards sonder (where one realizes that others have an inner life just as richly complex as their own).1

In essence, believing that one is special in their own right is an instance of Sartrean bad faith. People cling onto the myth of exceptionalism to avoid confronting success or uniqueness being determined by external factors such as systemic inequalities or privileges, and to suppress the fear of being ordinary, insignificant, or replaceable. Ultimately, specialness is a symptom of humanity’s struggle with absurdity and ambiguity. Believing oneself as special is a coping mechanism to attempt to impose order and meaning in a chaotic, indifferent world, bypassing the existential anxiety of questioning one’s intrinsic meaning. Thus, all these efforts attempt to delay and distract from the great equalizer: death. 

The line, “And when everyone’s super, no one will be,” from the animated film The Incredibles encapsulates a concern in claiming that people can’t have superiority of value over one another. However, I believe this notion can be reframed so that the universality of intrinsic worth, rather than detracting from people’s worth, simply dismantles the hierarchy of exceptionalism. Although neither you nor I are superior in our uniqueness, that doesn’t necessarily diminish the value of life or human connection. Beyond mere labels, achievements, or personal consumerism, we are inherently equal, none above the other. When we detract from viewing ourselves as special individuals, we can foster authentic reconnection with the community of our fellow humans around us and find meaning in the struggle with the absurdity of the human condition. 

Disclaimer: Of course, none of the ideas I have presented here are special or new. Buddhism and Ecclesiastites were on this train long before I ever was.