With Jane Goodall's death last week and the Nobel Prize announcements this week, I wrote about why it's a big problem that we lionise individuals for achievements that resulted from the work of collective groups of people.
In Goodall's case, for example, African conservationists have long criticised her for being a white saviour. But capitalism sanitises and promotes people like her because narratives of heroic individuals keep the system propped up – it makes us feel like we, too, can reach the exalted status of Goodall and others.
When we idolise people, it also inflates their ego, and even they start to think that they are better, or more deserving, than others. Goodall's carbon footprint was enormous for her advocacy work, and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that she thought her interventions were worth the carbon cost – that she, as an individual, was so valuable that excessive polluting was justified.
Lionising individuals only promotes this kind of hierarchal thinking, and I think it's holding us back. Until we move beyond the narratives of heroic individuals, we will remain trapped in a world that values the success of the individual over the collective.
https://www.sower.world/jane-goodall-critique-individualism/
#JaneGoodall #conservation #climate #nobel #nature #natur #NaturSchutz #BioDiversity
