Individualism in American Society

Individualism in American Society A Reflection on the Repressive Desublimination of American Individualism

The idea and practice of individualism has been subject to repressive desublimination in America. Repressive desublimination is when a hope, a need, that has been buried and denied by an oppressive system, is allowed some room to breathe, then co-opted and redirected back into a form that ultimately reinforces the oppressive system that denied and suppressed out hopes and needs in the first place. Humans need recognition of the self because they possess, as individuals, the capacity for reason and logic and people exist physically and mentally apart from one another, thus leading to different experiences and different perspectives. The human need for recognition of the self has been buried and denied by the ideology of collectivist society. In American society, the idea of the individual has been co-opted and redirected through the political, economic, and social ideologies back into a form known as corporatism that ultimately reinforces collectivist society. Works from the birth of the American literary tradition paint an image of what it means to be an American individual. They also express the dangers and temptations encountered in pursuing individuality in a corporatist society and what happens when a person cedes their “self” to society. Already, with only these two options, we see no way out. But this way of thinking too is corporatist. Corporatism reduces society to the sum of its interests and places legitimacy in interest groups. However, “If everything is interest based then it is impossible to imagine that there could also be two positions, because everything moves from the idea of interest, from the truth of self-interest.” (Saul, 1996, p.8) Who is the American individual? Above all else, the American individual is self-reliant and ruled by reason and intuition. They insist on themselves and never imitate. Ralph Waldo Emerson explains that the individual follows their intuition and instinct, “To believe in your own thought, to believe that what is true in your private heart, is true for all men, —that is genius.” (Emerson, 1841, p.533) One follows your own soul because it is connected to God. To follow anything but your own soul, your own intuition, is folly because people are “noble clay plastic under the Almighty effort” who’s role in life is to be a hand of Providence and “advance on Chaos and the Dark.” (1841, p.534) However, most people do not express their true selves, “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” (1841, p.533) Henry David Thoreau adds a rule to the logic of the individual. Thoreau’s major quarrel is with a government set up to serve him but which adamantly refuses to. The government cannot comprehend the idea of the public interest, only negotiating interest groups. Thoreau’s individual does not fight with other men or nations, nor do they make themselves seem better than anyone else. They like the idea of government but only if it serves them and they continuously look for reasons to support the government. However, if the government is not one of equality, one cannot support it with clear conscience. The individual should never be forced to resign their conscience to the legislator, “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” (Thoreau, 1849, p.830) Thoreau also asserts the morality of the individual. One person’s right to throw a fist extends as far as another person’s nose. Or to use Thoreau’s metaphor, “If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.” (1849, p.834) The reason-based individual must neutralize their actions. It is not their duty to eradicate any enormous wrong but it is their duty to wash their hands of it. The American individual rejects collectivist society at every turn. They reject collective morality, religion, government, history, experts and their writings, and collective truth. To the American individual, there is no greater authority than the “self.” Emerson observes that society never advances, “It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Its progress is only apparent…it undergoes continuous changes…for every thing that is given, something is taken.” (Emerson, 1841, p.548) Both Emerson and Thoreau see little virtue in the actions of masses of men. Thoreau expresses this in his tirade on voting, “I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that the right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.” (Thoreau, 1849, p.833) He goes on to say that the right will only prevail when the majority is indifferent to the outcome. Thoreau also releases the individual from collective responsibility when he says, “I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.” (1849, p.839) Emily Dickinson also proclaims the madness of the majority, the mob, “Much Madness is divinest Sense -/To a discerning Eye -/Much Sense – the starkest Madness -/’Tis the Majority.” (Dickinson, 1890, p.1216) Twain and Chopin also echo the words of Emerson and Thoreau. In Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck rejects many outshoots of collectivist thinking, such as organized religion, collective morality, experts and their writings, and the reverence for the past and future. In Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier shows a disregard for organized religion and collective morality. The blatant disregard for organized religion (and perhaps the placement of morality in the individual) stems from America’s Puritan beginnings, as demonstrated in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In The Minister’s Black Veil, Hawthorne highlights the hypocrisy of believers through Mr. Hooper’s black veil that symbolizes an open recognition of sin. He proclaims with his dying words, “’Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other…when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around, and lo! On every visage a black veil!’” (Hawthorne, 1836, p.631) Hypocrisy is also highlighted in another story of Hawthorne’s. Young Goodman Brown tells the story of a young man who attends a gathering of evil led by Satan. At this gathering he sees not only the low people of the village but also the most pious. He is exposed to the hypocrisy of all their secret sins and lives with this knowledge until his dying day. (Hawthorne, 1835) In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck develops his own code of morality and rejects collective morality and organized religion. Throughout the story, Huck struggles many times with the idea of turning his friend Jim in as a runaway slave. Collective morality demands this of him by saying he is hurting the widow by depriving her of her property, and also many other people he does not know will be hurt when Jim takes away his wife and children. Huck believes that if he defies collective morality, he will go to hell. In the end, his reason and love for Jim prevailed, “I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘Alright, then, I’ll go to hell.’” (Twain, 1884, p.162) The reader, through dramatic irony, recognizes this as Huck’s epiphany and his rejection of collective morality. Huck also rejects organized religion when he is living with the widow and Miss Watson. He decided not to try to make it to heaven because the Miss Watson would be there and it sounded awful boring. (Twain, 1884, p.2) After an explanation about prayer, he decides it isn’t of any advantage to him so he gives it up. Twain, 1884, p.9) Huck also periodically rejects experts and their writings through the chastising of Tom Sawyer and his elaborate but unnecessary plans. He even equates Tom’s foolery with a Sunday school after Tom tells him of invisible elephants and Arabs. (Twain, 1884, p.11) Huck also lives in the present. When the widow told him the story of Moses, she let out that it all happened a long time ago. Huck then lost interest because he “don’t take no stock in dead people.” (Twain, 1884, p.2) Huck is following the idea that he alone can judge what is right for himself and religion has no part in it. Emerson avows following intuition because your soul, your aboriginal self, is immediately connected to God. God is within. Both Whitman and Dickinson propose a communion with nature as preferable to organized religion. Whitman, in Song of Myself gets naked with nature, as does Edna Pontellier in The Awakening. (Whitman, 1856) (Chopin, 1899) Both are shedding society off with each piece of clothing and entering Eden innocent once more. Rather than church, Dickinson attends the church in her backyard, “With a Bobolink for a Chorister -/And an Orchard, for a Dome.” (Dickinson, 1924, p.1203) Another authority proclaimed greater than the self is the so-called experts and their books. Rebuffing these also includes a refusal to live in the past or the future or to take any other person’s word as truth without weighing it yourself. Huck Finn takes no stock in dead people. Tom Sawyer’s plans are foolhardy. Whitman tells his reader they will, “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the specters in books, /You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, /You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” (Whitman, 1856, p.1012) Emerson supports detecting original individual thoughts “more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.” (Emerson, 1841, p.533) He also promotes the present over the past and future because he sees that, “Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye maketh, but the soul is light; where it is, is day, where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.” (1841, p.541) A common theme in the attainment of individuality is enlightenment. Emerson says, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” (1841, p.550) The attainment of truth is central to enlightenment and Thoreau declares, “They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.” (Thoreau, 1849, p.843) And so we come to Mrs. Pontellier, her awakening, and her struggle to attain individuality from the onslaught of societal responsibility. Edna struggles to protect her “self” from the expectations of her peers in Creole society and is never fully self-reliant. Edna awakens from her role as wife and mother to find her life unsatisfying. She pursues romantic interests and in the end, finds them unfulfilling. Edna’s personality is undetermined, as evidenced by her sudden mood swings and indecisiveness, especially when Alcee Arobin seduces her. Edna is not strong enough to live as an individual with the weight of society pressing down on her. Collective morality tells her to be a good mother, a good wife, and a sociable person. She is a member of the interest group of high-society women and she cannot escape it. Because she lives in a corporatist world, the idea more than one equally legitimate positions does not occur to her. She believes she can either live as an individual and become like Mademoiselle Reisz or fulfill her role as wife and mother like Madame Ratignolle. (Chopin, 1899) In this situation, Emerson offers another option: “I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, -but these relations I must fulfill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot I will seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself…if you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions.” (Emerson, 1841, p.543) In this way, Edna could reconcile her love and responsibility to her children and also the fulfillment of her “self.” But Edna can only see two options. Feeling the pressure of collective morality but also the call of her “self” and her soul, she chooses to save her “self.” As she heads out towards the ocean, she understands what she meant when she said she would give her life for her children, “she would give up the unessential, but she would never sacrifice her self for her children.” (Chopin, 1899, Ch.37) If Edna had been able to see more than two radical options, which is impossible in a corporatist framework, she may have been able to reconcile her love for her children and her individuality. Edna would not allow the corruption of her soul, the corruption of her individual “self,” so instead she takes her own life to save herself. The current form of government in America invites the corruption of individualism. The government is ruled by the masses that possess no collective brain. The collectivist society forces individuals into interest groups that fight each other. Every decision is interest-based. Collectivism holds the belief that the individual has no rights and that the standard unit of reality is the community, the nation, the race, etc. The only way to convince people that their physical reality is of lesser importance than an imagined one is through supreme force and muscle and statism has always been the political outcome of collectivism. To create a corporatist society, three things must happen: 1. Transfer power directly towards economic and social interest groups. 2. Introduce entrepreneurial initiative in those areas normally reserved for public bodies. 3. Erase the divisions between the public interest and private interest. That is, question the very idea of the public interest. (Saul, 1996, p.6)
In this Platonist system, motivated by fear, legitimacy lies with the interest groups, not with the individual. Society is run on the basis of negotiations between groups, and when everything is run by the truth of self-interest the entire idea of the public interest is destroyed. This form of society, government, and decision-making stems from the Plato and the conservative idea that man must be controlled. J.R. Saul asserts that human beings live with a Socratic/Platonic tension, “The Socratic, was about the trust of the human. The Platonic about fearing the human. The Socratic was about legitimacy being based in the human. The Platonic was about legitimacy being based in groups, in interest groups, it was the father, or the mother, of the corporatist movement.” (Saul, 1996, p.4) America has been organized into interest groups that betray the idea of individualism expressed so adamantly by the authors previously mentioned. To live in America, “to live in a corporatist society is to live in a Platonist society which is pyramidal, which is fear based, essentially, formalization of fear, if you like. It is not humanist. It betrays humanism, and it is not democratic. It betrays the basis of democracy and it denies the idea of tension, of equilibrium, because it requires absolute answers.” (Saul, 1996, p.4) In a humanist democracy, the more you participate, the more you are an individual. The Socratic oral humanist tradition is doubt filled, always seeking equilibrium. Platonist ideology requires absolute answers, “It left really only the micro management for humans because everything else was already structured in a pyramidal sense in order to control society. Intelligence was narrowed and reduced in a sense to an idea of power.” (Saul, 1996, p.4)
Ayn Rand wrote, “Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.” (Rand, 1963, p.129) Emerson would refute the corporatist system as he does in Self-Reliance, “The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church…vote with a great party either for the Government or against it…under all these screens, I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life.” (Emerson, 1841, p.536) Thoreau also decried the corporatist system of interest groups when he wrote, “There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State come to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.” (1849, p.844) The organization of American society into a corporatist structure run by religious, political, ethnic, and other types of interest groups is a betrayal of the American spirit. As clearly shown in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Kate Chopin, individual rights and the sovereignty of the “self” are the foundation of America. While the country publicly proclaims the individual rights of its citizens in the democracy, it corrupts and reforms individualism to fit into the corporatist machine. While citizens think they are expressing their own opinions, corporatist society forces them into groups to vie for the attention of their fellow countrymen. Individualism has been subject to repressive desublimination in society and it is time the American public took their rights back. As J.R. Saul said in his lecture on corporatism, “the role of government as a mechanism of the public interest is not to protect the public. We don’t need protections as if we were children, in that sense, but one of the principle roles of government is to maintain a real stable form of public choice.” (1996, p.20) As many authors from the birth of the American literary movement have written, there is little virtue in the action of masses. God and truth lies within. America is supposedly based on individual rights. Let the citizens use their democracy to make that statement true. Individuals must act because, “The more you participate the more you are an individual, that is how humanist democracy is built.” (Saul, 1996, p.25)

References: 1. Chopin, Kate (1899). The Awakening. 2. Dickinson, Emily (1890). Much Madness is Divinest Sense. 3. Dickinson, Emily (1924). Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church. 4. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1841). Self-Reliance. 5. Rand, Ayn (1963). Racism. The Virtue of Selfishness. 6. Saul, J.R. (1996). The Hagey Lecture. Power versus the Public Good: The Conundrum of the Individual and Society. 7. Thoreau, Henry David (1849). Civil Disobedience. 8. Twain, Mark (1884). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

References: 1. Chopin, Kate (1899). The Awakening. 2. Dickinson, Emily (1890). Much Madness is Divinest Sense. 3. Dickinson, Emily (1924). Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church. 4. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1841). Self-Reliance. 5. Rand, Ayn (1963). Racism. The Virtue of Selfishness. 6. Saul, J.R. (1996). The Hagey Lecture. Power versus the Public Good: The Conundrum of the Individual and Society. 7. Thoreau, Henry David (1849). Civil Disobedience. 8. Twain, Mark (1884). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.