Tom Facchine – A Big Problem In Our Society

			individualism is one of the biggest problems of our society, because human beings, although much of
our lives are lived and experienced as individuals,
		

			we can't live alone, right? No man is an island. It's the poet said, we depend upon other people,
especially our families. And so the problem is if the way that we're constantly conceiving of
ourselves and conceptualizing our lives and our experiences are only at the individual level, what
do I like? What do I not like? What is freedom for me as an individual? What is my individual
choice? What are my individual rights, you're going to slowly, consciously or not whittle away, and
erode and sabotage all your relationships, and all of your outside help and support. Now, it's a
whole other discussion about whose interest that serves within the capitalist economy. That's kind
		

			of what they want, because they treat you as an individual consumer, they treat you as an individual
worker, but we need to think about as a human being, as a soul that has a body, does that make sense
to live like that, you're going to have your individual career and your individual hobbies and go
back to living by yourself and, you know, work your 40 years, and whatever industry you work in, and
then retire and die alone. That's kind of the ideal human and the capitalist individualist system.
But that's not life. Right? You need family, you need
		

			other people to make your life worth something. And if you're involving other people, then it
doesn't become a question is not about freedom. On the question is not about
		

			what are these people giving to me or whatever it becomes about duty? Because relationships are
about duty and mutual obligation? What are my duties to this other person? What are my obligations
to this group of people, and then you realize that actually, if you do link up with other people,
your family, your community, your faith, then life becomes better than it would have been just by
itself just by yourself, just as an individual, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts,
right? So we need to be very careful that we're not just because if you only thinking as an
individual, then life's gonna be very hard. You might feel like you're experiencing a lot of freedom
		

			and a lot of liberation, when you're in your 20s, maybe in your 30s, when you kind of have this sort
of energy and independence and whatever, but the human body is, is not made to be independent, it's
going to deteriorate, right? And you're going to need other people and support at some point in your
life. And so, if you've burnt your bridges, and you don't have anything to go back to, then you're
going to end up in a very, very difficult and lonely situation at some point, and a lot of people's
misunderstanding of the Sharia. And they're sort of being shocked or scandalized by the Sharia comes
from this problem of looking or thinking just on an individualistic level, as opposed to a family
		

			level or a society or societal level. Right? If you look at say, differences between men and women,
some points in the Cydia, especially inheritance, inheritance is always the big thing. Right? Why
should a brother get more than his sister? Right? If you look at it through an individualistic lens,
it makes no sense. It seems completely unfair. we're imagining a scenario in which, you know, the
sister comes from California and the brother comes from New York and they come to the court and
they, here's your money, and here's your money. And by and you never see each other again, right?
That seems unfair. Why would you give one person twice as much as the other, we imagine, each one of
		

			them has their career, each one of them has their separate lives and their separate homes and
everything separate. That's the problem is how you're conceptualizing that relationship. That's not
a relationship of a brother and sister, the Sharia allows people to automate the Sharia so that they
need to be in a relationship of a family, right? There are duties and obligations between them. The
brother is responsible for his sister, a brother is supposed to contribute and help his sister a
brother is supposed to be there, if something God forbid, happens to his sister, you know, sisters,
family, or husband or whatever, you know, he's supposed to be responsible, and so that seeming a
		

			cemetery or difference is supposed to account for the fact that he's got more responsibility to her
than she does to him. So if they live as individuals, it doesn't seem to make any sense. But if they
actually live in a way that Shinya is trying to incentivize, or is assuming a certain family
structure, where there's an actual relationship between those people, there's actual duties, there's
actual responsibilities and obligations. And so we need to imagine ourselves and live in those
relationships and in those obligations, it's not that people get it backwards. They think, oh, well,
now we live as individuals and yeah, sisters in California and brothers in New York. And so now
		

			We can get the change the city. No, no, no, no, no, no, the Sharia is that way for a reason. It's
telling you that you need to have a stronger relationship and be in a more familial relationship
than maybe what you're imagining. There needs to be more duties and responsibilities in between
those two people than just the kind of modern, individualistic capitalist imagination.