On the Role of the Individual in Collective Struggle Pt.2

Self-Development Is Not Individualism

Individualism teaches: improve yourself so you can dominate others, escape them, or stand apart from them. Revolutionary self-development teaches: develop yourself so you can be useful, reliable, and effective within collective struggle. These are opposites.

A worker who studies theory, improves their communication, maintains physical and mental health, and carries themselves with dignity is not betraying the cause. They are becoming a better instrument of it. An organizer who learns strategy, history, psychology, and discipline is not indulging ego. They are preparing to work with others under difficult conditions.

To confuse this with liberal “self-care” ideology is a categorical error. Bourgeois self-help treats society as fixed and asks the individual to adapt to exploitation. Revolutionary self-development treats society as changeable and asks the individual to prepare themselves to help change it.

Against Asceticism and Guilt Politics

A particularly destructive tendency today is the idea that enjoyment, celebration, or ordinary human life must be suspended indefinitely in the face of global suffering. We are told we cannot celebrate holidays, enjoy culture, or pursue personal growth because oppression exists elsewhere — whether Palestine, Sudan, or any other site of imperialist violence. This is not Marxism. It is moral asceticism, and it produces paralysis, not solidarity.

Making oneself miserable does not weaken imperialism. It does not stop genocide. It does not educate the masses. It does not build organizations. It does not persuade anyone outside a narrow subculture already inclined toward guilt and self-reproach. On the contrary, it isolates socialists from the working class, who live complex lives, love their families, celebrate traditions, and seek moments of joy amid exploitation. When socialists present themselves as joyless scolds who police behavior rather than organize power, they appear alien — and rightly so. Lenin warned repeatedly against substituting moral posturing for political work. The task is not to display purity, but to build forces capable of intervention.