Thought I had about liberal individualism: It’s well-illustrated by the scene from the movie Office Space, where the boss is chastising the employee about her flair and people who do the “bare minimum.” Because of policy, he can’t just tell her to wear more flair than the minimum, but he still very much wants her to do so, so rather than getting the policy changed (which would be “restrictive” and go against the concept of “being yourself”), he tries to convince her through repeated shaming and browbeating and talking around it. The whole thing centers around him trying to convince her that she wants to be someone who wears more flair and comes off very passive-aggressive because it has no real understanding or respect for her as a person, only this sort of facade of respect that is grudgingly given.

I think it also fits well with the notion about “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.” Because it helps show how underneath liberal individualism, there is this aggressive desire for conformity and adherence to a strict way of being. But the norms of liberalism say you’re not supposed to directly pursue that, lest you become “authoritarian”, so people find passive-aggressive ways to pursue it instead. End result being you get this confused cocktail of mixed messages, where you’re simultaneously being told you should live your life how you want to live it, while also being told you better only live it within a very narrow framework.