Despite this text's range of authors and contributors, including Henry Giroux and Noam Chomsky, the book's main thrust is social psychological. It surveys recent writing and research that outlines and seeks to explain why the US is an outlier among affluent principally European nations in its minimalist approach to social programs and policies to mitigate poverty.
Though recognizing that racism, i. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through graduate students. The very essence of equality of opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no domination by any group or [monopoly] in this republic It is no system of laissez faire I have witnessed not only at home but abroad the many failures of government in business.
I have seen its tyrannies, its injustices, its destructions of self-government, its undermining of the very instincts which carry our people forward to progress. I have witnessed the lack of advance, the lowered standards of living, the depressed spirits of people working under such a system And what has been the result of the American system?
Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance, not merely because of the wealth of its resources and industry but because of this freedom of initiative and enterprise. Russia has natural resources equal to ours But she has not had the blessings of one hundred and fifty years of our form of government and our social system.
By adherence to the principles of decentralized self-government, ordered liberty, equal opportunity, and freedom to the individual, our American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of well-being unparalleled in the world.
It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want, than humanity has ever reached before. Progress of the past seven years is proof of it And I again repeat that the departure from our American system Copyright Digital History. You get the point.
Whereas Sanders is a full-throated Progressive, or self-described democratic socialist, Clinton represented Progressivism-lite: a third-less calories than your full-on Progressive. Still, Clinton is all about the federal government doing and guaranteeing more, with individualism more of a problem than part of any solution. The rise of the administrative state, which removes the crucial element of individual consent, should be a continuing cause for concern regarding the future of rugged individualism.
Nevertheless, it is difficult in recent years to find consistent support for rugged individualism even among conservatives.
Likewise, Bush supported a major and expensive expansion of prescription benefits for the aged. Although a few conservatives in Congress have fought the good fight, the federal budget, executive power, and federal regulation all seem to grow under both Republicans and Democrats. All that to say: if you are looking for a stirring renaissance of rugged individualism, you probably would not look in Washington, D.
Another reason to be pessimistic about rugged individualism is that its foundation, individual liberty, has increasingly become an abstraction in our modern society. Many young people who expected to keep their own private health insurance policies faced an unpleasant surprise when those policies were declared illegal because they did not meet Obamacare requirements.
Young men were left to wonder why they had to buy more expensive policies that included pregnancy coverage, for example, which they did not need. Still, overall, such moments are rare and do not seem to meld into much of a liberty movement, especially among the young. Developmentally, several trends would lead to pessimism about the future of rugged individualism. Then the rising number of college graduates who live with their parents, are older when they find full-time employment, and who marry later all contribute to a generation that will be delayed or prevented from reaching the sort of individualism experienced by their post-World War II parents and grandparents.
Finally, narratives are gaining a hold on the young that will lead America further away from rugged individualism. One might praise efforts to address income inequality as enlightened commitments to help those lower on the economic ladder; yet each step in that direction mandated by government does necessarily reduce individualism.
It places government squarely in the business of income redistribution, something previously the province of individuals. In fact, some polling has suggested that American young people are now more open to socialism than before. A YouGov survey in January showed that among those under thirty, socialism rated ahead of capitalism, 43 percent to 23 percent. All this is tempered, however, by evidence that young people do not even know what socialism means.
On the other hand, people have been proclaiming the demise of rugged individualism for more than one hundred years, yet somehow it lives on. Planted deeply in the soil of the American founding and character, it may be diminished but is not likely to be destroyed. The more interesting question is whether it might enjoy some kind of renaissance in the twenty-first century.
Are there reasons to be optimistic about the future of rugged individualism, or will the future simply see further decline? The social media world in which Americans, especially younger Americans, now live is truly a new frontier. Now, rather than leaving the house to engage the collective culture, we are able to be alone and yet through technology also be connected to others.
We may not be bowling alone, as Robert Putnam bemoaned, but people are communicating alone. In fact, a new term describes this frontier: networked individualism. Books such as Networked: The New Social Operating System and websites such as the Pew Internet Project describe in detail how people are able to operate with greater individualism, yet not in isolation.
New and larger social networks are developed, new work styles are possible, new hobbies and interests are pursued— all from the stance of an individual and a piece of technology.
It offers more freedom to individuals … because now they have more room to maneuver and more capacity to act on their own. It is difficult to evaluate at this early stage the impact of networked individualism on our society and politics, and whether it represents a new boost of energy for American rugged individualism. Whether social media has a positive or negative effect on social relationships is debated, with some agreement that it may extend the range of social contacts and keep some aging relationships alive, while perhaps reducing the depth of relationships.
A survey of the college graduating class of by the consulting firm Accenture revealed that only 15 percent preferred to work for a large corporation. Until the early s they aspired to work in traditional corporate jobs.
In the past few years, however, a new favorite career choice has emerged—working for themselves or launching their own business. Starting your own business, or stitching together a series of portfolio or gig jobs, will certainly put more "rugged" back into the business lives of young people.
Individualism in business leads to greater creativity and innovation, to be sure. A study by two Cornell University professors considered collectivism and individualism in group settings, for example, finding that individualistic groups were more creative and generated more innovative ideas.
It is unclear how these changes in business and social life might translate into the larger society and politics, or how they might affect the philosophy of rugged individualism. On one hand, young people spending more time in their business and social lives in an individual role would point toward more individualism, broadly speaking. On the other hand, it is not clear that younger voters see the connection between their own increasingly individual lifestyles and supporting rugged individualism, as opposed to collectivism, in the political realm.
In general, the younger generation has been less interested in politics and more engaged in volunteer or community activities. Still, it seems worthwhile for proponents of rugged individualism to educate young people along these lines.
There is also hope for rugged individualism in the lives and businesses of immigrants who still flock to the United States.
Immigrants continue to come to America, seeking a better life and more opportunity for themselves and their children. When you take a taxi ride in a major US city, your driver is frequently an immigrant who, if given the chance, will tell you how he is working hard so that his children will enjoy the American dream. It is immigrants who study up on American history and civics in order to pass the citizenship test, a commitment that few born here undertake with comparable results.
As Milton Friedman pointed out, however, even the rugged individualism of immigrants is threatened by the growing American welfare state and the emphasis on ethnic identity. In Los Angeles, for example, drivers have resisted the ideas of urban planners and the additions of carpool lanes and mass transit because of their individual preferences to hop in the car and drive.
A more rugged version of American masculinity is hard to find on screen. He called out the conformism hiding in the pose of rugged individuality. But what both men had in common was a streak of rugged individualism , stubbornness, and personal vision. By sticking to the variation you hold by, there is individualism.
Certainly there are no five miles equal in rugged grandeur to those beginning just below and ending above West Point.
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