As I’ve written elsewhere, individualism is a particular problem. There has always been a group of people attached to anybody who calls themselves an individual: the artists who we admire, the leaders who we follow, or whoever. If you really want to succeed in your life; if you want to thrive, you must not overlook the social.

Frank O’Hara might never have published Lunch Poems if Lawrence Ferlinghetti hadn’t gone on asking him about lunch. Lou Reed’s Perfect Day was perhaps more Mick Ronson and David Bowie than Lou Reed. Donald Trump is a paean to everybody who has ever wanted to be an individual. And so on.