Right after Democrat Grover Cleveland vetoing "a bill to give (a mere) $100,000 to Texas farmers to help them buy seed grain during a drought:
the same year he gave wealthy bondholders $5 million by pricing them $28 above market value. "Rugged individualism" he called it
Now the loner concept of te man riding off int the sunset a a way to emake himself was from comic books aeound the 1880's the idea ofrugged individualis & the loner was that period's "greatest generation a nice mix of propaganda. supported by riting back then mostly the dime adventure book. Horatio Alger, wyattet earp buffalo bill cody they existed but the bigness was magnified through the marketing machine of its day. It was also supprted by the likes of Herbert Spencer
posted by yichel
over 2 years ago
I think the image of the rugged individualist is someone who THINKS. So many people are just sheep, follow the leader. Park in an area of a parking lot where no one is, and boom they are all there. Go to a toll booth with no one there and boom, they are all there. [that I know from being a toll booth attendent. That's what creats fads and fashions, eh/she did it so I must too.
But, where is the respect for that? I for one respect the person who can and does think for themselves. The rugged individualist. I am also one.
People are afraid to leave their comfort zone [what will people think?] [I might lose something?]
But they can not help but have some respect for the thinker who does, even if it is a grudging respect and/or jealousy. Its there.
posted by fgra
over 2 years ago
America was not built by the Lone Ranger; the real America was built collectively by teamwork and compassion wasn’t it?
That’s what I think according to the history books, not movies and dime store novels.
Yes, the country was built by teamwork, but, without a leader, aka, rugged individualist, thinker, it would never have progressed. You look back it was always the [oddballs] trying new things, frequently being laughed at, in some cases threatened. The ones that challenged the status quo that kept things moving forward. Then, once their theories were more or less accpeted the teamwork portion takes over.
For most of history, thinkers were persecuted for their ideas. in some cases killed. There was one who's name escapes me now who was forced [by government in his country] to drink poison. Einstein? someone with a big step foprward like his anyhow.
Mankind as a whole seems to fear change - of any kind - without the rugged individualist we would still be cavemen.
posted by fgra
over 2 years ago
Individualism (hardly rugged!) may have gone too far in our country. There is such extreme unwillingness to follow now, that "Lead, Follow, or Get Out Of The Way" ... seems in many cases to have transitioned to "Freedom Of The Individual Entitles Me To Stand In The Way."
I see it all the time ... from the grocery store, to the politics. I think the Internet has made it easy to complain ... do you have a better idea? No ... just want to vent!
I think our country was founded and forged by the rugged frontiersman of old. Our history is built upon this rugged individualism and now romanticizes this quality.
Ironically, these rugged individualists still seem to be products of their roots, who subscribe to religious dogma and are not Free Thinkers.
Sixteen years ago (1993), psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer argued, in Listening to Prozac: A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self, that the introverted, rugged individual no longer has a place in American society (if s/he ever had one in the first place). These individuals have become more and more isolated, alienated, and unhappy, because our society values only extroverted, socially focused individuals. (I happen to agree with the thought expressed in this last sentence.)
His solution--let them eat Prozac.
Oh so many years ago when the dean of students was expelling me from my first attempt at college he explained that he would totally trust me to take his daughters on a month long trip through canoe country and know that they would be safe and protected and learn how to survive in nature. However he would not like them to spend one day in a class room with those same daughters.
So much for rugged individualism.
Interesting that "rugged individualist" conjures a masculine image. I was trying to think of a feminine rugged individualist and came up with Nelly Bly (Elizibeth Cochran)
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hooda was once a rugged individual who still needs vast open spaces and has a very low tolerance for herd mentality, except for situations in which she can exploit the herd for personal comic relief...(more fun than prozac)
posted by hooda
over 2 years ago
