Wilding: Eco or Ego?

The Wilding of the USA

The term, wilding, emerged as a description of random youth violence. A sign of failed socialization. But in recent decades, this kind of wilding has been appearing in previously unexpected quarters—in business and political leaders. Instead of aiming for the common good with common sense about what that means, “wilders” follow their impulses to be antisocial and often are deliberately, planfully, antisocial.

Charles Derber (1996) calls wilding a virus that comes in different strains. The expressive wilding form describes the joy of indulging in destructive impulses (e.g., pushing over gravestones). Instrumental wilding goes beyond fun or emotional gratification to include using any means for personal advancement—e.g., money, career, fame, legal means like utilizing others but also illegal or immoral means like lawbreaking, lying, and cheating.

The common forms of wilding today that are assaults on society include the following:

• Economic wilding involves the “morally uninhibited pursuit of money by individuals or businesses at the expense of others” (Derber, 1996, p. 8).

• Political wilding describes the abuse of political office to benefit oneself or one’s social class or to using one’s authority to inflict suffering on citizens.

• Social wilding includes personal and family acts of violence as well as social forms of selfish behavior that weaken society (like hoarding resources by the better off).

Overall, wilding is considered a degenerative form of individualism (or collectivism). Such wilding indicates an inability of society to regulate its members.

But Derber has a more restrictive definition: “self-oriented behavior that hurts others and damages the social fabric” (ibid, p. 9). Sometimes people make mistakes in this direction but when a person has little empathy for others and takes deliberate harmful action, it is wilding against the social welfare.

Derber (1996) documented the subtle legitimation of wilding by the federal government in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, it is not so subtle. The deregulation and feeding of oligarchic concerns started in those years and have accelerated, shaping the super-wilding culture we face today, where children and the less fortunate are sacrificed for a few more dollars in the bank accounts of the rich.

“American wilding is a form of socially prescribed antisocial behavior, modeled by leaders and reinforced by the rules of our free market game” (Derber, 1996, p. 16).

This type of wilding has become quite familiar to USians in recent decades, depicted favorably in many Hollywood films (e.g., Falling Down; Mad Max; Wall Street), in videogame play (e.g., Grand Theft Auto), and in advertisements.** It has infected everyday life in school shootings (e.g., Columbine), road rage and other forms of visible violence.

US history shows that the pioneering, individualistic and materialistic emphasis in the culture was long balanced by a moral concern for community and the common good. But the latter has collapsed. With neoliberalism, the deregulation of business and the lowering of taxes (primarily for the very rich) were accompanied by the badmouthing of government as the problem. The wellbeing of the populace was made into a competition rather than a basic human right. The poor and unfortunate were blamed for their situation, regardless of age. Impoverished families (babies, children), elderly, and the unhoused? Their fault. E pluribus unum was forgotten.

Wilding is embedded in the type of capitalism the US practices and exports—free market capitalism where the primary right is to make money. This contrasts with social capitalism where everyone has the right to healthcare, work, home, food.

“American wilding is a form of socially prescribed antisocial behavior, modeled by leaders and reinforced by the rules of our free market game. As such, it reflects less the insufficient presence of society in individuals than overconformity to a society whose norms and values are socially dangerous” (Ibid, p. 16).

“Egoism and anomie can themselves be seen as norms, culturally prescribed and accepted….Wilding partly reflects a weakened community less able to regulate its increasingly individualistic members. In this sense, the American wilder is the undersocialized product of a declining society that is losing its authority to instill respect for social values and obligations.” (Ibid, pp. 16-17).

And he wrote that in the mid 1990s!

In the last few decades, financialization and commodification of all aspects of life (healthcare, child raising, prisons and corrections, water, gun safety, Hollywood, housing, higher education, etc.) have placed the common good and a thriving life farther and farther out of reach. Stories from Hollywood and Madison Avenue infuse lives with “Have it your way” anyway you can. The oligarchs (ultra rich and corporations) stepped back from social responsibility, lobbying for more and more personal tax cuts and corporate welfare, housing their money in favorable nations, corrupting political leaders around the world.

Since the 1980s or so, the wealthy have been withdrawing from the social contract. Instead, they are hoarding more and more for themselves (Harrington, 2024).

“The rich are using legitimate grievances by overtaxed home owners and working people to reduce their own obligation to society. This proved to be such a fortuitous political recipe for the affluent that it has become the bible of the Republican party; however, what has proved to be a guaranteed ticket to elected office may prove disastrous to society as a whole, for it is doubtful that a society can survive when those governing it become accessories to its breakdown. (Ibid, p. 120)

Derber explains that expectations for what a good life should look like exploded in recent decades, inflating dreams of untold wealth, glamor and power (the world over). At the same time, the means of achieving such aims have been narrowed to nearly nothing. Most people, then, are encouraged to dream dreams they can never achieve through legitimate, legal means.

“For the rich and powerful, the dream of unlimited wealth and glamour, combined with the Reaganite and Gingirchian revolution of corporate deregulation and corporate welfare, opens up endless fantasies and opportunities. As Durkheim himself noted, when the ceiling on ordinary expectations is removed, the conventional restraints on pursuing them will also rapidly disappear. This produces socially prescribed anomie and wilding among elites based on unlimited possibilities. A different version of socially prescribed wilding trickles down to everyone else. For those exposed to the same inflated dream of wealth, glamour, and power, but denied the means of achieving it, illegitimate means provide the only strategy to achieve socially approved goals.” (Ibid, p. 17)

On any given day, I can find illegitimate means advertised, and demonstrated on television, YouTube and social media.

In a world where you can’t achieve what you’ve been molded to desire, cynicism reigns. The mismatch of goals and means brings about anger and hostility, looking for someone, something to blame—immigrants, women, people who make you uncomfortable.

I would modify Charles Derber’s use of wilding and call what he describes, ego-wilding. This contrasts with eco-wilding (next post).

**When I see it, I write to product manufacturers to point out unethical treatment of people in their product advertisements—whether sadism (e.g., people ignoring the suffering of someone) or violence against others (e.g., shooting people as if in a videogame) or self (e.g., doing harm to self because of not using the product).

REFERENCES

Derber, C. (1996). The wilding of American: How greed and violence are eroding our nation’s character. St. Martin’s Press.

Harrington, B. (2024). Offshore: Stealth wealth and the new colonialism. W.W. Norton.