To date, this blog has been presenting the
argument, through a historical lens, that American culture has evolved to
promote a highly individualistic view with little concern for communal
interests and demands. This has led, as
compared to other societies, for Americans to engage in deviant behaviors. That is, they are more likely to behave in
ways that go contrary to more communal norms and laws.
Upon reviewing that history, one can detect
adherence to a set of constructs which encouraged this progression toward
deviance. The constructs are
transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology, with an assistance from
the effects of TV. The reader is
encouraged to review the last four postings of this blog which describe this
development.[1]
The claim here is that what has resulted from
this development among many is a general sense of illegitimacy, mostly
revolving around political issues, and even encouraging a strong dose of nihilism. Individualism has gone a long way to render asunder
meaningful community living from contemporary American life. Instead, a growing sense of societal conflict
seems to have perforated the nation’s social landscape.[2]
The concept of individualism, used freely in
this series of postings, needs more substance than what has been given it up to
this point. Individualism does not make
itself known similarly in all situations.
Robert Bellah, et al., looked at individualism in the American social
make-up. They wrote, in Habits of the
Heart, “[i]ndividualism is more moderate and orderly than egoism”[3]
and go on to quote Alexi Tocqueville:
Individualism is a calm and considered feeling
which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and
withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with the little society formed
to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself.[4]
They describe individualism as a habit of
thought well ingrained in America’s historical psyche.
While
the mass phenomena to find true self, ala perceptual psychology, and the
extravagance attached to that quest is recent, Americans are basically a people
who look to themselves as individuals, as opposed to members of society or
community, and they rely on their personal resources for social and personal
goals and the source of meaning for those goals. These resources include those derived from
personal characteristics as well as material assets.
Those
writers, Bellah, et al., cite Ralph Waldo Emerson (who wrote an essay entitled
“Self-Reliance”), the Puritans, John Winthrop, and Thomas Jefferson as
repeating the same theme. Among the
middle class, individualism is highly tied to work ethic, something still
strongly felt in America.
“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.”[5] And this invites one to question how work
affects Americans. Work, which forces
the individual to have a public life, has become, due to a large-scale
industrial/service society, segmental and a self-interested activity.[6] With that, 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, and even
social improvement goals. In either form,
Bellah, et al. are concerned that goodness is 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.”[7]
They continue that this forms a basis of
morality and ethics which is highly subjective; therefore, the distinguishing
character of individualism remains ineffable.
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”?[8]
From the American experience, one can surmise
that without external standards of morality, either of a secular or religious
nature, a sense of nihilism pervades among many. Is there proof of this nihilism?
When
this blogger first worked on these ideas, by doing research for a paper, the
Waco tragedy unfolded. Since then, other
tragedies have hit the American society to varying degrees of human suffering –
school shootings, shootings in theaters, town centers, places of worship, etc. Why were these people in the Waco case so
willing to be led to their deaths by a religious fanatic? Why are others willing to engage in
disastrous events that often end in violent death often to themselves?
Is
meaning for life so hard to find in this nation’s common lot? Or perhaps the report by various writers on
the detrimental and accumulative effects of trends, e.g., the divorce rate, on
the children of this country can provide further insight.[9] A bit of literature among the press and
published articles and books have documented how popular it has become to
encourage adults to take on more self-centered goals which then manifests in
irresponsible behaviors on the part of adults who are often parents.
American
society, over the last number of decades, has experienced several disruptive
events and trends. Along with the
divorce rate, there have been riots, increasing crime rates (currently going
down), suicide rates, drug use, etc. And
with that disruptive setting, this posting will end and promise that the next
one in this series will address the implications of the above challenges to
those charged with developing curriculum for American schools. Surely, these societal challenges should influence
what schools plan for their students.
[1] The series of postings begins with “Early On,” and
can be accessed on the URL, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/. Readers can
use the archive feature to see this posting and the three that follow.
[2] Aidan Connaughton, “Americans See Stronger Societal
Conflicts Than People in Other Advanced Economies,” Pew Research Center,
October 13, 2021, accessed February 23, 2024, URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/13/americans-see-stronger-societal-conflicts-than-people-in-other-advanced-economies/.
[3] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M.
Sullivan, A. Swindler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism in American Life (New York,
NY: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1985).
[4] Ibid., 37.
[5] Ibid., 55-56.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., 78.
[8] Ibid., 78-79.
[9] For example, see Daniel Siegel, “Generation
Doomer: How Nihilism on Social Media Is
Creating a New Generation of Extremists,” Global Network on Extremism and Technology,
December 16, 2022, accessed February 24, 2024, URL: https://gnet-research.org/2022/12/16/generation-doomer-how-nihilism-on-social-media-is-creating-a-new-generation-of-extremists/#:~:text=Because%20of%20digital%20echo%20chambers,and%20humanity%20is%20inevitably%20doomed. To illustrate
how long this concern has been addressed, see Barbara Dafoe, “Dan Quayle Was
Right,” The Atlantic Monthly, 274, 4 (1993), 47-84.
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