When Thomas Jefferson included the words “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, he signaled that America was different, even revolutionary. Gone were the tribal rights of Englishmen. In their stead were universal, individual rights.
Individualism — defined as “the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant” and, in the broader sense, as the “social theory favoring freedom of action of individuals over collective or state control” — is a core American principle.
It manifests itself in visible ways. If you’ve ever watched a European soccer match, you know what I mean. When an occasion calls for applause, Europeans clap in sync, creating a familiar beat, rather than a cacophony of noise. By contrast, we Americans clap to the beat of our own drummers, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau.
Self-reliance and individual action are key to many celebrated achievements of Americans. During the Civil War, for instance, Clara Barton concluded that saving soldiers required nurses to be closer to the action. Over strong resistance from those around her who thought women should stay in hospitals under the supervision of men, she did what she thought was right, organizing battlefield aid for Union soldiers, earning her the name “Angel of the Battlefield.” A strong-willed individual, Barton founded the American Red Cross and was active in the women’s suffrage movement.
Similarly, Daniel Boone was the epitome of an individual who needed to go his own way. Boone repeatedly crossed the Appalachian Mountains to explore what was beyond. He then blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap, allowing others who sought opportunity and freedom to follow him into Kentucky, far from the institutions of the East. When Kentucky became too crowded (civilized), he moved further west. Boone was the quintessential frontiersman, inventing the ideal of the frontier hero living off his skill and determination and scorning any institutions that hemmed him in.
While Boone was a colonial and Barton came from colonial roots, America also attracts immigrants from all over the world seeking an individualistic society. Ayn Rand, a Russian émigré and the author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” set her characters in an American landscape in which determined individuals follow a moral imperative to live independently. The villains of her stories are those who exist as parasites off the independence, rationality and creative power of her heroes. Rand celebrated America as the first moral nation, founded on the principle of individualism as a moral right. At one time, she was one of the country’s most popular authors.
It used to be that there was plenty of room in American life for those who wanted to be individuals. Whenever we had to join together, in New England town meetings or on westbound wagon trains, it was for a specific purpose. When that purpose ended, we went our separate ways. We got along by not speaking of “money, politics or religion” at the dinner table. We recognized our disagreements, but the imperative to leave others alone allowed us to tolerate differences.
That is hard to imagine today, with major political parties dominated by a single faction. There are fewer Republican politicians speaking out in favor of free trade than ever, and Democratic “tough on crime” voices are even scarcer.
The Founding Fathers would have been gravely worried. George Washington warned in his Farewell Address against “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge.” This, he wrote, “is itself a frightful despotism.”
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison described an American system designed to prevent the creation of stable coalitions that would infringe on individual rights. The differences among individuals, what Madison called the diversity in their “faculties,” were critical to what the new country was all about, and “the protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”