Thoreau and Dependency

Whether it is dependency on someone else for money, food, or clothing, it all creates a feeling of resentment in a person. Upon taking this into consideration, the ideals of individualism and self-sufficiency begin to appeal to someone. Self-sufficiency takes the weight of dependency completely off one’s shoulders and the idea of individualism takes the guilt of their shoulders as well. No longer would you need to depend on others, and you wouldn’t feel obliged to help other’s either. Instead you can focus on your own aspirations, both political and social. However having a community of people based on the virtues of individualism and self-sufficiency would cause some problems. The first issue is if it could even be considered a community. Dictionary.com defines a community as “a group sharing common interests.” However, if that common interest is the pursuit of an individual interest, rather than common or collective interests, then is it still a community? Either way having virtues of individualism and self-sufficiency would jeopardize the community as history has proven during times when communities experienced a bad economy, came under attack from an enemy, or had conflicting aspirations. In America’s history, the basic ideas of individualism were applied in other ways: states’ rights. Less than 30 years into our country’s history, issues with states’ rights had already appeared. Having just gained independence from a nation that controlled almost all aspects of life, America was eager to pick up the idea of individualism. Even upon writing the constitution, each man who arrived had ideas that would benefit the state he was representing.
Leading up to the Great Depression, the idea of individualism had taken root regarding large corporations and businesses. Each corporation pursued methods that would be in the best interests of themselves and their capital. Because of this, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, many corporations cut back severely