The Great American Individual

I was just re-reading my own writing, specifically the recent posting about individualism in America. It struck me that I might be vulnerable to criticism with that piece—more so, that is, than usual—because I seem to indicate that America has a problem with individualism, at least in terms of writing and self-expression.

Yet, isn’t America the quintessence of individualism? Isn’t our culture the one which, more than any other, grants every citizen the option to make or remake their selves as they see fit? Choose the career, the life you like, the person you wish to marry…and, with luck and with pluck, and much hard work, you may succeed. Or you may not. But either way it is up to you.

It is, I think, very much at the heart of American identity, of our shared and not always conscious conception of ourselves. I also think it is true, or pretty much so. We really do give people the right to make or break themselves in whatever manner they see fit.

Certainly, that’s a great deal more the case here than in much of the rest of the world, even today, even in this twenty-first century. In many places still, people are born into an identity, which they cannot change. (I remember seeing a scene in the movie Gods And Monsters, which was a sort of fictionalized biography of James Whale, the director of the 1931 movie version of Frankenstein. At one point, the aged Whale [as played by Ian McKellen] has a memory of his youth. In the scene, a flashback, Whale as a young boy in an English Midlands farming family is busily sketching in a notebook. His mother rebukes him. “Don’t get above yourself,” she says. “Leave drawing to the artists.” It never once occurs to her that he might be one.)

So, yes, we are a nation of individualists.

And yet…and yet…

I can never escape the feeling that there is a difference between being an individualist and being an individual. That is, you can “stand on your own two feet,” and “stand your ground,” or whatever you want to call it…and still be exactly like the person next to you, who is also standing on their own two feet and standing their ground, a .38 Special in one hand and a copy of Atlas Shrugged in the other.

And I’ve a feeling that society wouldn’t be so eager to grant you the right to be an individualist if you were also a bit odd…if, for example, you were standing-your-ground while holding not a gun but an unpopular opinion.

In fact, come right down to it, I sort of think we’re allowed to be individuals so long as we are the kind of individuals that the larger culture demands we be. We are part, to quote an advertisement for Dr. Pepper that I saw long ago in the 1970s, “of an original crowd.” (What a lovely contradiction in terms that is.)

Specifically, I think we are allowed to be (or try to be) an individual who is a success in business or the professions. Not too successful, of course. And not in any way challenging to the system as a whole. But, a success…with a house in the ‘burbs and an IRA, and a long standing membership in the Church of Our Choice (even if we don’t go very often, and so long as it isn’t the wrong Choice), and children in a Good School, and with a Good Future (to be just like we are). Or, maybe, just to make the image a little more modern, we’ll also offer the option of a condo in the city and being an atheist or agnostic, so long as it is the right sort of atheism or agnosticism, nothing, that is, which might be too distressing to the minds of the many and the pure.

Or, to put it all another way, we are the rugged and self-sufficient individuals…that the Power Elite wants us to be…

…the individualist who is un-troubling, and undemanding, and causes no worries to the great and the powerful. And who believes that if he fails, that it is his own fault, and not that the System is stacked against him. And who, out of his shame and guilt, will never ask that the rich, in however small a fashion, share their wealth with others…

We are, in other words, the perfect caste. Our own Gods and Monsters…

The evil mother in our heads telling us, now and forever, and with such certainty…

Not to get above ourselves.