Every country has its national myths, stories about itself that shape and define its identity. Catalans have the myth of seny, meaning wisdom or sensibleness, and rauxa, or impulsiveness. Most foreigners I know living in Catalonia would be hard-pressed to identify specifically wise or impulsive traits among the natives, but scratch the surface, really ask a Catalan about his or her national traits, and seny and rauxa are always mentioned.
We Americans have our own myth of rugged individualism. You know, the brave pioneer family – or individual – striking out on their own, into the wilderness, conquering the land (um, not to mention the people that were there before them… but that’s another issue). The individualist who thinks for himself doesn’t want government (Big Brother, that is) messing with his life. Our heroic icons: successful people who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, the self-made (wo)man, the Marlboro man. Do your own thing. March to the beat of your own drummer. Our language is rife with words and images that express our exaltation of individualism, and we can thank Herbert Hoover for coining the term ‘rugged individualism’, as he put it, “those God-fearing men and women of honesty whose stamina and character and fearless assertion of rights led them to make their own way in life”. Yikes! Sounds like a scary, overly self-righteous super-race to me! Sounds tiring, too.
We contrast this to more collectivist cultures, ones that value the group and make decisions based on the community. We disparagingly refer to herd mentality, to following the pack, drawing on animal metaphors to show the inferiority of this kind of society. We view this as weakness, as a lack of moral, intellectual, and/or physical strength. We pity their weakness, spinelessness, lack of self-reliance compared to our super-evolved culture of advanced individualists, monoliths uniquely capable of weathering the storms of life on their own. I am a rock; I am an island. We write self-help literature to counter this social disease: “codependence” is a bad word, and anyone who is simply dependent deserves our pity, not to mention disdain.
Yet this myth is not only belied by the history of mankind; it is also belied by the history of America. Banding together has always been a survival strategy for humans; how else could we have outwitted all the other animals we competed, and essentially still compete, against? We are, after all, the naked ape – a pretty harmless, almost laughable, specimen compared to our mammal brethren. Think about the covered wagons of those pioneers. Rarely did a pioneer family strike out on their own, and if they did, they rarely survived. Instead, groups of pioneers travelled together, and when evening fell they drew their wagons into a circle to protect themselves against any external threats. When they reached their destination, neighbors pitched in to help each other build houses. The pioneers relied on each other.
We all survive because we rely on each other. We form societies to lean on each other. Humans don’t live in isolation, except the occasional crazy – or spiritual – hermit, or perhaps the uniquely American phenomenon: the survivalist, individualism taken to the nth degree. Also the exception that proves the rule. While thinking for oneself is undoubtedly a virtue, why do Americans glorify individualism to such an extent? We are so afraid of being engulfed by the group that we make life harder for ourselves. Why do we see relying on each other as a sign of weakness instead of strength, not to mention simply a sign of our humanity, or our humanness? Why isn’t reliance viewed as a human need… as well as a wonderful opportunity to generously give the people we rely on the chance to grow by helping us? I suppose there are occasional freestanding people of genius who manage to achieve greatness without anyone’s help, but I dare you to name one.
I don’t advocate blind adherence to the group, mindlessly conforming to what some randomly-chosen ‘leader’ says we should do, listening to ignorant hype and believing it to be the truth. I believe in thinking for ourselves and informing ourselves about the world. But I also believe that there is strength in numbers, and that self-reliance is hugely overrated. Why is alienation such a uniquely American ailment? When asked to share their first impressions of Americans, my students from more collectivistic cultures say ‘lonely’. I defend Americans – we like to be alone, we choose to be alone, I tell them. And that’s not a total lie, yet there is some truth in the loneliness of Americans.
My students are also horrified by the idea of feeling pressured to move out of your parents’ house at age 18. Let’s face it, now that we’re older we know that an 18-year-old is a child. Few have the wherewithal to make wise choices. On top of it, if they are going to college they’re probably already in debt from student loans, so why dig them deeper in the hole? For what? The much-vaunted independence? Living in squalor to prove their strength? That’s cruel. I did it – we all did. We had to or risk shame at our immaturity. I got in debt for doing it. And I got myself into hairy situations – which fortunately worked out well – that I wasn’t mature enough to handle. The situation in Spain where adults live with their parents well into their thirties isn’t the idea either, but 18 is awfully young to throw our offspring into the cruel world. Independence? They’ll get there… we all do.
When the miners in Chile were trapped, the news reported the following: “Though some miners have requested them, personal music players with headphones and handheld videogames have been ruled out, because those tend to isolate people from one another. With earphones, if they're listening to music and someone calls them, asking for help or to warn them about something, they're not available. What they need is to be together." (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/202026/chiles-trapped-miners-get-brad-pitt-not-nintendo) Togetherness equals survival. Standing alone is for the strong; togetherness is for the weak. But don’t we band together as a society precisely for the strong to help the weak, and for the whole to be stronger than its parts? Aren’t we all weak at some point in our lives? Or is that just a liberal view of what a society and community should be?
To my mind, collectivism is the very definition of society. We band together, work together, survive together, flourish together. We take care of each other, help each other, give to and take from each other. We are each other’s biggest responsibility. This is a sign of our higher consciousness and humanity. Viciousness, competition, and survival of the fittest are the law of the jungle. As humans, haven’t we risen above that?
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