The Myth of Individualism in American Society
by Prof. Emeka Aniagolu
One of the popular beliefs of American society, one that forms the crux of the myth of America’s “national character,” is the notion of a kind of glorious, uncompromising “rugged individualism.” This purported individualistic bent in American society has, consequently, been romanticized in American literature and mass media. It has even become formalized into a philosophical system of thought.
The fable of “Johnny Apple Seed,” the long-running and popular television series “the Lone-Ranger,” depictions of the frontier expansion of early America — so-called “Frontier Dynamics,” and its alleged quintessential spirit of “rugged individualism;” attest to the ubiquitous nature of this image and notion of individualism in the national mythology as well as psyche of American society. However, a critical revisiting of contemporary American society does not support the existence of much individualism as an American way of life. I will endeavor to make the case in the following pages for my counterfactual proposition.
To deny that individualism is not an American way of life is not, of course, the same thing as suggesting that there are no instances in which individual Americans have, against all odds, blazed new paths — ideologically, behaviorally or creatively. My bone of contention, however, is that the exact opposite of the myth of individualism as an American way of life is what obtains in American society; that such instances of individualism constitute the exception rather than the rule in American society. Conformity, therefore, in my personal experience and copious observation, rather than individualism more accurately describes the American way of life.
This statement might seem strange to people who normally think of America as a beacon as well as bastion of economic and political freedom, as well as a nation possessed of a constitutionally enshrined Bill of Rights, all of which are ostensibly directed at the preservation and promotion of the rights as well as autonomy of the individual. I think, however, that most people would agree that a society’s culture can often differ from its formal constitutional and legal infrastructure of laws, processes and institutions. For example, while the United States has one of the most highly developed criminal-justice systems in the world, it does not have a culture of low incidence of violence or crime as a consequence of that fact. In fact, the United States has a well documented culture of violence and high crime rate coexisting side by side with its highly elaborated formal criminal-justice system, if not because of it.
I cherish and admire the legal and constitutional “freedoms” Americans enjoy. Nobody who has lived under a dictatorship or witnessed the great dangers that scores of immigrants’ brave on land and sea in their desperate attempts to get to the United States, should take lightly those freedoms. In many ways, for many people and for many good reasons, America is a shinning symbol of individual freedom and socioeconomic prosperity.
But America, like everywhere else in the world, has her own peculiar problems — her own peculiar jumble of contradictions. One such jumbled contradiction, is the gap between the reality and myth of individualism in American society. To buttress my contention that American society is characterized more by conformity rather than individualism, I will discuss five aspects of the American socioeconomic and political system: (1) Racism; (2) Eurocentrism; (3) Corporatism; (4) Suburbia Syndrome; and (5) Nationalism.
If America were truly a society characterized by individualism, racism, as a social phenomenon would have long disappeared. Racism in America, which is directed at non-white peoples, depends to a large extent on the conformity of individuals to a particular belief system and behavior. “Group-Think” and “Group-Act,” to a significant degree, sustains racism both as a belief system and as individual and group behavior in American society. For example, the biggest complaint one hears from interracial couples in America, those individuals who have exercised individualism in their choice of partners is, the pressure they face from the society precisely because of their non-conformity.
The conformity expected of such couples is to “stick with their own kind,” not cross the so-called “color bar,” “maintain the racial gridlines,” “preserve the racial status quo.” That kind of societal pressure Americans exert on racially mixed couples to conform to age-old racial beliefs and gridlines is not an example of a system that inclines towards the promotion of individualism, but rather one that leans more towards conformity.
The second kind of cultural conformity in American society which directly contradicts the notion of individualism is the cultural Eurocentrism of American society. The tendency has not been for much of America’s history to create a multicultural quilt or even to “melt down” the hodge-podge of cultures from the various parts of the world into a “New World,” but rather to homogenize everyone into Anglo-Saxon (and then other European) culture. This second kind of cultural conformity ties in closely with the first kind, namely racism. The effort at Eurocentric homogenization of American society militates against the notion of individualism, for it demands conformity to a kind of “official Euro-American culture.”
For some time, there were mutterings about the problems presented by the accents of foreigners, especially as it pertains to foreigners teaching in educational settings in the United States. Without doing injury to the understandable expectation that a person teaching students in a given language of instruction should be intelligible in that language (in the case of the United States, English); it is nevertheless instructive to note that in the United States, while European accents are accepted, and often, romanticized, non-European accents are generally viewed as problematic.
It is alright for an Arnold Schwarzenegger to have a strong foreign accent and be an American action film hero, and later, become Governor of California; or a Henry Kissinger to have a distinctly lingering German accent and to have been America’s celebrity Secretary of State; but not for non-Europeans in America. For them, their accents supposedly constitute a barrier, a handicap to “integration,” “assimilation” and socioeconomic “upward mobility.” For non-Europeans in American society, they are expected to shed their “ethnic” identities in order to make socioeconomic progress in American society. But, of course, they cannot shed their skin color, assuming that were desirable, in order to become assimilated into white America’s racially defined “main-stream!”
The effect of this kind of conformity is legitimating things European and de-legitimating things that are not, thus, reinforcing the Eurocentrism of American society; hardly a recipe for individualism in a multiracial and multicultural country such as the United States of America.
A third kind of cultural conformity in American society that contradicts the notion of individualism is corporatism. Because of the central place occupied by the marketplace in America’s capitalist society, the modern corporation, which has emerged as the dominant organizing mechanism for the management of capital and labor in the production of goods and services; has given rise to a system of norms and values, which pose major challenges to individualism in American society.
The very structure of production within the traditional American corporation presumes and requires conformity rather than individualism. The repetitive, “chain-linked” formation of the “assembly-line” production system, is designed to provide efficient harmony, through the decomposition of routine tasks which only have meaning and purpose in the context of the whole: the finished product. Added to this, is the hierarchical structure of upper, middle and lower management and, of course, the traditional division between management and labor; all of which expresses itself in terms of income, power and status differentials. This kind of hierarchical regimentation, reminds one of an army, an organization though capable of a great deal of efficiency, is not exactly known for individualism.
In addition to the organizational structure of the American corporation is the phenomenon of so-called corporate culture. From the type(s) of dressing typically considered appropriate for the corporate image (which just happens to be Eurocentric), to the type(s) of hairstyles considered appropriate (anything “too ethnic” is considered problematic), to attending golf-tournaments, and so on and so forth; all attempt to homogenize the corporate workforce in American society into the cultural, recreational and idiomatic preferences of white America. Given the importance of getting and keeping a job, especially high paying and high-status jobs in the corporate world, most people conform. They subordinate their individual and “ethnic” cultural identities to that of the corporate culture.
The fourth kind of cultural tendency in American society that contradicts the notion of individualism, is what I call the suburbia syndrome. The suburbia syndrome is that complex of behavior that includes “white flight,” the “Docker Jeans” and “Bugle Boy,” sameness looks; the “yuppie” image, manner of speech and behavior. The suburbia syndrome also involves the “they” and “us” mindset; the assumption of the possession of moral superiority or higher values than “others,” who happen to reside on the “other side of the tracks.” That “suburbia syndrome” involves the attitude that being materially better off than others, automatically translates into you being better than them. To be part of the suburbia syndrome in addition to residing in one, you have to “walk-the-walk,” “talk-the-talk,” “think-the-think,” and “look-the-look.” Such a lifestyle makes for “cookie-cutter” “individualism” rather than the much-romanticized notion of “rugged individualism” in American society.
The fifth kind of cultural phenomenon in America that tends to contradict the notion of individualism in American society is that of nationalism. Although the phenomenon of nationalism is not unique to the United States, it takes on peculiar complexions in American society that does injury to the notion of individualism as an American way of life. There are four variants of nationalism operative in American society: (1) the “my country good or bad” nationalism; (2) the “if you don’t like it leave” nationalism; (3) “the good old USA” or “God’s own country” nationalism; and (4) the “un-American” nationalism.
The first and second variants are largely directed at foreigners, who level criticism of one sort or another against the American government and/or society. The third and fourth variants address Americans, either in the form of nostalgia or in the form of conformity to a set standard of behavior or ideological stance. None of those variants of American nationalism promote individualism. Instead, they promote, to a greater or lesser degree, conformity to “Group-Think” and “Group-Act.” When otherwise patriotic Americans find themselves constrained to criticize United States domestic or foreign policy, and are hounded by the CIA or the FBI; or find few channels for the expression of their contrarian view points in the mass media or in corporate circles; what is being promoted, however disguised, is conformity not individualism.
Many people in the United States may be able to discern that they have much greater formal legal freedoms than they have a palpable sense of personal freedom; that there is an ever present feeling of an unseen, unspoken, ubiquitous “hidden hand” (belonging either to “big brother” or “Uncle Sam”), that does not so much want to liberate the individual as to maintain a social, political and economic status quo. This is, of course, not all bad, for social order is necessary. However, recognition of this state of affairs helps to put in proper perspective the much-vaunted myth of “rugged individualism” in American society.
