“I Rebel, Therefore We Are” (Albert Camus)

Abstract

This article is an attempt to open discussion on the role of the individual, as opposed to the group, in contemporary progressive and radical politics. The phrase making a difference comes to mind. Academic ideas about the contexts and groups in which individuals operate are important yet require extensive revision. Jung’s ideas about the relationship of individuals and the social collective are useful as is Camus’ (1951/1953) book The Rebel. This article presents new thinking about individuals as fractured and broken as distinct from the autonomous unit promulgated by neoliberal thinking. Yet they remain individuals.

How Do I Know Who I Am?

“…These events speak to the words of both Dalal (2016) and Samuels (2016) in this issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal. Societies, groups, and religions, represented by individuals, are locked in a terrible global third-degree game (was ever the light-hearted transactional analysis word game so inappropriate as here?)…”

Thank God for Friday

“…Tudor and Hargaden (2002) made a political connection between psychotherapy and citizenship by emphasizing the personal development from subjectivity via intersubjectivity to become fully functioning citizens. Samuels (2001) also wrote about citizens as therapists, an idea he extends in his current paper (Samuels, 2016) with a more global and spiritual focus for the benefit and repair of the world.…”

Maturing as a Community Effort

“…The problem of individual accountability and corrective political action is complicated, as I believe Samuels (2016) has discussed in terms of ''the limits of individual responsibility'' (p. 105). I see his position as endorsing humility in the face of great collective troubles that will not be resolved by any individual's (or group's) fantasy of an idealized rescue or resolution.…”

“…My frantic mindset reflects something of the strain that accompanies our grouped condition. The question of how to avoid living out the group's tyrannical potential and its embodiment in individual tyrants seems at the heart of what both Samuels (2016) and Dalal (2016) have articulated from their different viewpoints.…”

“…The Bind Dalal (2016) and Samuels (2016) have written papers that make a useful and important pairing. Although their positions may at first appear diametrically opposed, I see them as describing different sides of a single phenomenon that I would consider central to the human condition: me-them, us-you, or any other combination of prepositions-in-tension.…”