American “Individualism” Is Shallow and Immoral
Americans like to think of ourselves as the most individualistic of nations. We often make reference to our national ethos of “rugged individualism” without realizing where that phrase came from. It turns out that it was coined by none other than Herbert Hoover, who in 1928 spoke of the “choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines doctrines of paternalism and state socialism.” Hoover went on, however, to say that he didn’t mean that America is an every-man-for-himself nation — he feared being “misinterpreted as believing that the United States is a free-for-all and devil-take-the-hindmost.”
Even Hoover’s limited version of laissez-faire “rugged individualism” would be exposed as inadequate within a few years of his coining the term. What got America out of the Great Depression was not self-reliance but the collective action of the New Deal and the Second World War. Since the 1980s, we have fallen into another era in which individualism is glorified and collective effort is dismissed. On issue after issue, American institutions are failing to act, often justifying their inaction by saying that they value the “freedom” of the individual over the collective good. This tendency has led to disastrous outcomes. In both long-term environmental crises like climate change and short-term ones…
