This blog has dedicated a countless number of words to describe how
individualistic the nation has become, especially since World War II. The overall history of the nation describes
the evolution of a fairly individualistic people, maybe because from almost its
start, a variety of ethnicities – and hence no overarching cultural dictate[1] –
was involved in its formulation. This
diversity has, for example, fueled a successful, individualist-based capitalist
economy that has led the world to unprecedented riches.
But this bent, until the great war, was
meaningfully contained by certain communitarian biases that served as the foundation
for a federalist view of government and politics. That view emphasizes a recognition that the
nation’s constitutions, both at the national and state levels, set forth
federated structures among its people.
Yet, as the history of the nation evolved, its people have chosen a more
self-centered view of social arrangements.
So, this blog can seriously ask: what
does it mean to say the United States is too individualistic?
The concept, individualism, needs more
substance than most people ascribe to it.
Individualism does not make itself known similarly in all situations. Back in 1985, Bellah, et al. looked at
individualism in the American social make-up.
They wrote in Habits of the Heart, “[i]ndividulism is more
moderate and orderly than egoism” and proceed to quote Tocqueville:
Individualism
is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate
him[/her]self from the mass of his[/her] fellows and withdraw into the circle
of family and friends, with this little society formed to his[/her] taste,
he[/she] leaves the greater society to look after itself.[2]
They describe individualism as a habit of thought well ingrained in
America’s historical psyche.
While the mass phenomena to find true self and
the extravagance attached to that quest is more recent, Americans are basically
a people who see themselves as individuals, as opposed to members of society or
community, to rely on the resources for social and personal goals and the
source of meaning for those goals. These
cited writers refer to Ralph Waldo Emerson (who wrote an essay entitled “Self-Reliance”),
the Puritans, John Winthrop, and Thomas Jefferson as harping on the same theme.
Among the middle class, individualism is highly
tied to the work ethic, something firmly felt in America to this day. “The problem is not so much the presence or
absence of a ‘work ethic’ as the meaning of work and ways it links, or fails to
link, individuals to one another.”[3] Work, which forces the individual to have a
public life, has become, due to large-scale industrial (and now postindustrial)
operations, segmental and encourages self-interested workers. By doing so, work has lost a lot of its
binding character among the work force.
Individualism can express itself in two
modes: utilitarian individualism and
expressive individualism. Utilitarian
individualism tends to be single-minded, and goal driven toward advancing
careers. Expressive individualism values
relationships, forms of art, even social improvement goals. In either form, the writers express concern about
the goodness being defined by one feeling good.
“Acts, then, are not right or wrong in themselves, but only because of
the results they produce, the good feelings they engender or express.”[4]
They continue that this bias suggests or relies
on a moral sense. It is based on a
morality or ethics as being highly subjective; therefore, the distinguishing
character of individualism remains ineffable or difficult to describe.
The
touchstone of individualistic self-knowledge turns out to be shaky in the end,
and its guide to action proves elusive … [T]o what or whom do our ethical and
moral standards commit us if they are “quite independent of other people’s
standards and agenda?”[5]
The
above concern brings to the fore a battle of priorities. The battle can be described within the
following question: Is it truer to say
societal well-being is produced by assuring individual well-being or is
individual well-being produced by assuring societal well-being? Current schools of thought in psychology
generally known as self-actualizing seem committed to the former.
One
of the founding fathers of the self-actualizing school, psychologist Abraham
Maslow, using the concept, “synergic” (taken from the anthropologist, Ruth
Benedict), assumes that what society can do for the development and well-being
of the individual is also good for the development and well-being of the society.[6]
Bellah,
et al, observe:
Our
individualistic heritage taught us that there is no such thing as the common
good but only the sum of individual goods.
But in our complex, interdependent world, the sum of individual goods,
organized only under the tyranny of the market, often produces a common bad
that eventually erodes our personal satisfaction as well.[7]
The total level of utility in a society,
therefore, can only be enhanced or protected if the commonweal of the entire
society is the focus. Bellah, et al, in Habits
of the Heart, identify that the nation is afflicted with a “cancerous” dose
of individualism.[8]
In
a later book, The Good Society, these writers pick up on the same theme
and further state that to address the disease, social problems should be viewed
not from the perspective of the individual, but through the institutions in
which the problems are found. They point
out that it is only through institutions that the individual learns to become
interdependent with others. It is not
just important what institutions do, but how they do it. It is through these actions that people
coordinate, build social trust, and expand social capital.
Before
leaving the topic for this posting, perhaps a reminder as to the meaning of
social capital would be helpful.
According to Robert Putnam, social capital as a societal quality is characterized
by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations,
and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[9]
Surely, individualism as described here is more
an obstacle to attaining social capital than an asset. The next posting will look at the theoretical
framework this blog will use in the postings to follow – that way, the reader
knows what is guiding this blogger.
[1] This is a qualified claim. Yes, the early colonial experience was heavily
British, but in that, a variety of religious traditions, albeit geographically
segregated, found their way to this new land (at least to Europeans). As the 1600s and then the 1700s progressed,
America saw representatives from the array of European cultures make their way
over the Atlantic in search of new lives.
[2] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M.
Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life
(New York, NY: Harper and Row,
Publishers, 1985), 37.
[3] Ibid., 55-56.
[4] Ibid., 78.
[5]
Ibid., 78-79.
[6] George Leonard, “Abraham Maslow and the New Self,” Esquire
(December 1, 1983), accessed “gateway” site November 18, 2021, https://classic.esquire.com/article/1983/12/1/abraham-maslow-and-the-new-self .
[7] Bellah, et al, Habits of the Heart, 95.
[8]
Ibid.
[9] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community (New York, NY: Simon and
Schuster, 2000).
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