We are not a nation of individuals.

[uncledark]

Our national myth is a story of brave individuals, carving out trails in the wilderness; lone colonies standing up against the British Empire; homesteaders and their little houses on the prairie. That’s not the whole of it though. That’s like saying that a movie is the product of the actors, and forgetting that long list of names that scroll by at

Comments

[paka]

You're "supposed" to feel like you're special on your own, rather than special because you retain your individuality within the context of a larger group. As with a lot of things I was told as a kid, I'm skeptical about this and tend to feel it was a lie told to make sure that I and my peers did more and more work, or voted the way someone wanted us to vote.

[uncledark]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you skeptical of the assertion that one is supposed to feel special on one's own, or that one feels special by being an individual in a group, or are you making another point that I'm missing?

My post is about collective action to fight social and political problems, not about the value or nature of individual worth.

[apel]

Yeah, that's one of the striking things about living in the US -- the myth of the lone hero remains very strong, even though people here are just as interdependent as in the rest of the world. I guess it was different in the time of the "Wild West" but that was a long time ago. As you point out, roads and schools are the results of collective efforts organized through various levels of government.

I noticed that in one interchange that Romney had with a student in one of the presidential election debates. The student wanted to know what Romney was doing to make sure there would be jobs for him and his class mates when they graduate.

Romney, predictably I realized later, made it personal. His response was that the student should look him up when he had graduated and Romney would provide him with a job. It was as if Romney was blind to the fact that there are millions of college students graduating each year, all looking for a job. Instead of a scalable answer, Romney used the "divide and conquer" approach.