i cant speak for the us, but in my country, if you are from certain places (namely big cities and apartment buildings) you will most likely live on your own apartment and not even really know your own neighbours. you are likely to hate them for trivial reasons. each on their own concrete box, with their own problems and toys.
there are other ways in which we isolate but i think this is a great example of how the individualism manifests itself, great way to illustrate the physical and emotional distance of it.
about non atomized societies: tribal, indigenous soceties of a couple of hundred of people, small town neighbourhoods are tighter knit too and generally know a lot about and comiscerate with eachother. this type of thing. even then small towns are still capitalist so theres kind of a limit to this
As someone living in an apartment in a US city: I don't know a single other person in my building, and this is not abnormal. The only times I've ever interacted with someone else is if there's some sort of issue (noise, typically) or to hold a door for someone.
i cant speak for the us, but in my country, if you are from certain places (namely big cities and apartment buildings) you will most likely live on your own apartment and not even really know your own neighbours. you are likely to hate them for trivial reasons. each on their own concrete box, with their own problems and toys.
there are other ways in which we isolate but i think this is a great example of how the individualism manifests itself, great way to illustrate the physical and emotional distance of it.
about non atomized societies: tribal, indigenous soceties of a couple of hundred of people, small town neighbourhoods are tighter knit too and generally know a lot about and comiscerate with eachother. this type of thing. even then small towns are still capitalist so theres kind of a limit to this
As someone living in an apartment in a US city: I don't know a single other person in my building, and this is not abnormal. The only times I've ever interacted with someone else is if there's some sort of issue (noise, typically) or to hold a door for someone.