{"id":23238,"date":"2010-05-13T10:55:22","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T15:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=23238"},"modified":"2013-12-15T03:06:12","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:06:12","slug":"american-individualism-exceptional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/05\/13\/american-individualism-exceptional\/","title":{"rendered":"American Individualism: Exceptional?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is commonly claimed and, in fact, I have claimed it on this blog (here<\/a> and here<\/a>), that the U.S. is especially individualistic.\u00a0 Claude Fischer, at Made in America<\/a>, puts this assertion to the test.\u00a0 “There is considerable evidence, ” he writes, “that Americans are not<\/em> more individualistic \u2013 in fact, are less <\/em>individualistic \u2013 than other peoples.”<\/p>\n

He operationalizes \u201cindividualism\u201d as “gives priority to personal liberty” and offers the following evidence.<\/p>\n

Question: \u201cIn general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Question: \u201c Right or wrong should be a matter of personal conscience,\u201d strongly agree to strongly disagree.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Question: \u201cPeople should support their country even if the country is in the wrong,\u201d strongly agree to strongly disagree.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Question: \u201cEven when there are no children, a married couple should stay together even if they don\u2019t get along,\u201d strongly agree to strongly disagree.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fischer entertains several explanations for these findings.<\/p>\n

(1) Americans aren’t really individualistic (anymore).<\/p>\n

(2) Americans means something else by individualism (like freedom from government or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps).\u00a0 Fischer thinks that these are different values, though: anti-statism and laissez-faire, pro-business economics.<\/p>\n

(3) Americans are individualistic, but they are also religious and sometimes religion outweighs individualism.\u00a0 If that’s so, Fischer argues, then maybe it is true that we’re not that<\/em> individualistic.<\/p>\n

(4) American individualism is found not in people’s opinions, but in how we organize our society.\u00a0 Fischer calls this “undemocratic<\/em> libertarianism.”<\/p>\n

Finally, (5) maybe what is meant by individualism is really voluntarism, the right to leave and join groups as we see fit.<\/p>\n

The argument and the answers clearly revolve around how we define (or operationalize) “individualism.” \u00a0In any case, the comparative data does put the U.S. into perspective and Fischer’s discussion leaves a lot to unpack.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is commonly claimed and, in fact, I have claimed it on this blog (here and here), that the U.S. is especially individualistic.\u00a0 Claude Fischer, at Made in America, puts this assertion to the test.\u00a0 “There is considerable evidence, ” he writes, “that Americans are not more individualistic \u2013 in fact, are less individualistic \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,272,3920,276,304,693,42],"class_list":["post-23238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-marriagefamily","tag-nation-united-states","tag-nationalismpatriotism","tag-the-state","tag-public-opinion","tag-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23238"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60230,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23238\/revisions\/60230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}