I was watching television in fascinated horror as CBS News
interviewed a bunch of young people who are enjoying life on the beaches of
Florida in the days leading up to shelter-in-place, but after the orders from
the CDC and WHO to observe social distancing. They were doing what young people
at beaches do: having a lot of fun and sun; a lot of drinking; a lot flaunting their youth;
and assiduously practicing their privilege to disobey the rules of civil
society. The interviewer asked them whether they knew about social distancing, the
threat of the coronavirus, and whether they knew that what they are doing can threaten
the health of everyone gathered as well
as themselves. Their responses was about what one would expect from a bunch of young
people: self-absorbed, lacking in self-awareness, and self-centered. The
backlash was immediate and harsh.
There have been reports of other young people all around the
world doing the same things, so those Florida revelers are not alone. Indeed, I’m
sure that American youth does not have a monopoly on entitlement, selfishness,
and self-absorption. I do believe that there is an exclusively American attitude
and brashness that stems from the myth of the rugged individual that is the
hallmark of American identity. It is the origination of the idea of American
exception, of the entitlement mindset, of how we feel the government fits into
our culture and how our society should function.
The mythology of the American rugged individualism is ingrained
throughout our culture, throughout our society, and throughout our core beliefs.
We worship at the altar of the lone hero, who is always right, matched up
against the vast majority, who are always wrong. We worship the mythological
self-made man who succeeds, alone, through pulled up bootstraps.
This mythology is propagated through our entertainment media:
John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and many others have made the lone gunman character
the hallmark of their acting careers, the Die Hard franchises, the action adventure
films, as well as the entire comic superhero genre is a tableau of the lone hero,
succeeding because they are left to their ingenuity and individualism.
It is a mythology because the entire background of these stories
of the lone hero, fictional or non-fictional, are ignored. We ignore, whether
through deliberate myopia, or through the blurring of the background details by
the deliverer of the message; the role that community, society, and the infrastructure
of people who enables the smooth and efficient functioning of society. The existence
of the invisible background detracts from the theme of the mythology, because
the reality does not fit into the desired narrative.
Quite simply, this invisibility allows the individual to make
their claim to be the lone hero, to exercise their unencumbered freedom without
regard to the others around them. The narrative is that these lone heroes are what
stands between us and a society of groupthink which threatens to subjugate individual
rights.
It is extremely Randian in its unreality, and just as silly.
The irony is that without society, without community, and without
basic support infrastructure, these individuals would not have the wherewithal to
exercise their rugged individualism.
Returning at the situation at hand, these people on the
Florida beaches are demonstrating their rugged individualism by exercising
their right to do as they wish, without consideration for the health of the people
around them, whether they are family, friends, or strangers. In a broad sense,
they are living the rugged individual lifestyle, with an unrealistic disregard
for the community and society that surrounds them, support them, and enable
them to be who they want to be, yet they ignore that fact and steadfastly
refuse to acknowledge the existence of their immense support infrastructure.
In yet another ironic twist, we have seen people shower effusive
praise and appreciation for those who had previously blended into the invisible
background. We have seen people not only acknowledge the vast importance of the
massed powers of the society, indeed we have seen them show deference and
gratitude to those who were once considered a drag on the noble quest of the
rugged individual. Whereas we had shown our appreciation for the police, fire
fighters, emergency room doctors, nurses, and EMTs previously; we are seeing
the less appreciated workers in our invisible background for what they are: the
true foundation of civil society. It is as if suddenly the once adulators of
the rugged individual discovered, much to their surprise, that there is good in
mass action, even as they consistently looked past them. They pretend that the
individuals who are willing to work together did exist, that the people who are
the base of where we all stand on to do our work do not exists. In other words,
they think they hit a home run because they were put on second base by the
masses who don’t perform saliently heroic things, just necessary non-heroic
things. Yet, when our society is in crisis, we realize how much they contribute
to our society. It is only then that we, quite belatedly, realize how
fundamental they are to our society.
Unfortunately, that is the way of our society: we don't appreciate
what we don't see. There is a Chinese proverb: referring to someone who is hugging
the feet of the Buddha at the very last minute. It applies to those people who cram
for a test at the last moment rather than studying when they have ample time.
It applies to this case because we heap praise on those that we have ignored
throughout our daily existence.
In kind or non-pressure environments, we embrace the idea of
the rugged individual, we lionize them, and we hold them up as the standard of excellence.
In wicked or challenging environments, i.e. in times of crisis; we rely on the
system, the collective whole, to pull us out of crisis. We realize that the
rugged individual alone is not enough to overcome massive challenges. Are we schizophrenic, depending on the nature
of our immediate surrounding environment? Are we hypocrites? Are we two faced?
I would not be so harsh. I would, instead, say that we are
living in a pluralistic society, so we have an infinitely number of possible solutions
which allows us to prosper regardless of the environment. The environmental
conditions vary continuously through different sets of challenges with varying
difficulties. Adhering to a single mindset, both the rugged individual mindset
or the groupthink mindset are recipes for disaster because there is no room for
the uncertain, there is no room for adjustments, we have made the commitment to
a deterministic reality.
The Spring breakers,
through their youthful hubris, and a dedicated belief in the rugged
individualism that they have swallowed from childhood gave them the cachet to respond
to possible disaster by catering to their lone hero fantasy, that the fate of
the collective whole does not depend on them, and that their fate does not depend
on the collective whole. They are the rugged individual, and rugged individual
always win.
