Know a rugged individualist? Prop him in front of his Apple II, and point him toward the prairie

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923739-1,00.html

Essay: The Rugged Individual Rides Again

By HP-Time.com;Roger Rosenblatt Monday, Oct. 15, 1984

If you would win over a crowd of Americans, use the term rugged individualism; they will salute it like the flag. Why not?

Everyone always says that rugged individualism is the backbone, and the jawbone, of America; that a country as grand and sturdy as this could only have been built by the self-propelled and self-interested strivings of wild-eyed nonconformists, each fur-laden Daniel Boone pursuing his independent errand into the wilderness. The term is fairly precise. More aggressive than mere individuality, less narcissistic than the "me" decade, it does not refer to people who live in health clubs or on roller skates, or to the hotly cultivated yuppies who have come to mean so much to themselves. The "rugged" saves "rugged individualism" from shabbiness by implying not merely solitary but courageous action. Look. Here comes America. Davy Crockett, Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford. Those fellows built a nation with their hands.

Of course, the picture is pure hokum, and everybody knows it. The West was won by wagon trains, the East by sailing ships, and they all had plenty of passengers aboard, by necessity working together. "In history," Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin explained, "even the great explorer had been the man who drew others to a common purpose." Try to imagine an individual so rugged he could raise a roof beam on his own. snip

Do we preserve the loner ideal as an act of national defensiveness, to protect the country from conceding that it is too much alone in the world? Before the Second World War, a great many Americans sought international isolation. Once the nation be came a superpower it achieved more isolation than anyone ever dreamed of; in a bipolar world, both poles are alone. The individualist Henry David Thoreau called America "The Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow." Do they indeed? All right, then, says the proud country: If we would be left alone, let us be' alone gloriously, ruggedly. And by extension: Let every individual be alone. Prop him in front of his Apple II, and point him toward the prairie.

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I remembered reading this article back in 1984 and looked for it. Though it is dated I thought it might still be interesting to some?

[originalpckelly]

1. It's a dual truth: we must be individuals and we must be a part of a society.

Balancing those two needs, so that people do not feel oppressed by the constant control of others, and not so free they are totally on their own when they need people, that's difficult.

[snagglepuss]

2. Insightful is an understatement. There is a lot to ponder. I'm bowled over

in fact so not much to add at this time, other than it reminds me of Philip Slater's Pursuit of Loneliness written in the 70's.


:kick:

[enlightenment]

3. We need a rereading of de Toqueville.

Part of the mythology of the 'rugged individualist' came from a misreading of his work. People chose to cherry-pick the complementary bits and ignore the wise criticisms - rather like they cherry-picked Adam Smith's moral philosophy and invented American style free-market capitalism without the restraints that Smith said must accompany the concept.