The Japanese have been rightly credited for the equanimity that they have displayed in the face of the current calamities that have befallen their country. They have shown stoicism, collective courage, and, within Japan's communitarian culture, few acts of lawlessness, such as looting or public disorder and other acts of lawlessness have been reported. In addition, reporters on the scene have observed that the Japanese patiently queued-up in long lines, accepted rationing and generously shared whatever little they possess with others in greater need.
One can only imagine how citizens in this country would react if confronted with similar domestic adversity. How would ordinary Americans cope with the widespread collapse of our aging infrastructure and the loss of public services? Would they react hysterically and seek to blame the government and anybody else but themselves for this country's collective refusal to invest in upgraded infrastructure and preparedness through increased spending and taxes? Recent history may provide some guidance.
Especially in times of discord or economic uncertainty, the individualistic ethos of American culture becomes more pronounced and perhaps more strident. Thus, for example, during the so-called "town hall meetings" in August of 2009, the debate over healthcare reform became increasingly rancorous as a number of older Americans--many of whom already enjoyed healthcare coverage at taxpayer-funded expense through Medicare--complained because they were fearful that something would be taken from them and given to others--i.e. their uninsured neighbors.
The debate over healthcare reform brought to the fore two contrasting understandings of American individualism, which were presented in stark relief by Anne Deveare Smith in a remarkable op-ed column which appeared in the New York Times on September 9, 2009.An anonymous nurse from the Western part of the United States explained that she and others like her did not want to become members of a hive: "When you come to the West, you have a different mentality. There's an independence and an individuality that you don't get any place else, because when you're in a city, you're kind of part of a hive....Here, people are really, really proud and they cherish their independence. And they cherish the fact that we are all individuals. And that's what we're afraid of, is that we're going to lose our individuality and we're just going to be part of the hive. If you're just part of the hive, what are you going to do? You're going to cull out the weak links. You're going to cull out the lady that's on crutches and got diabetes."In that same column, Bill Robinson, a doctor in Bozeman, Montana, acknowledged that this country's emphasis upon individualism was rooted in myopia and cynicism: "American culture simply has never been based on caring about what happened to your neighbors. It's been based on individual freedom and the spirit of, if I work hard I'll get what I need and I don't have to worry about the fellow that maybe can't work hard. It's a pretty cynical view of America. But I honestly think that drives an awful lot of the debate--the notion that I've done my job, I've worked hard, I've gotten what I'm supposed to get. I have what I need and if other people don't, then that's sort of their problem. And unfortunately the big picture--that our nation can't thrive with such a disparity between the rich and the poor, the access people and the disenfranchised--that hasn't seemed to really strike a chord with Americans."
As early as the 1820s, the French observer, Alexis de Tocqueville, detected a potentially disquieting link between the pervasive individualism which infused the new American democracy, which Tocqueville celebrated, and the large number of voluntary associations which he discovered Americans so willingly participated in. This collectively-shared adherence to individualism "disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and draw apart with his family and friends, so that after he has thus formed a circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to look after itself." Tocqueville further warned that "Selfishness blights the germ of all virtue; individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life...Selfishness is a vice as old as the world... individualism is of democratic origin, and it threatens to spread in the same ration as the equality of condition."Almost two centuries later, citizens of the United States have begun to experience extraordinary stress and uncertainty. As this culture has made the painful transitions during the past two hundred and thirty-five years from agrarian to industrial and now to post-industrial, and from rural to urban to suburban and exurban, many current observers have detected increasing evidence of social disintegration, violence, fragmentation and loneliness. Harvard Political Scientist Robert Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone, has observed that ordinary Americans shared a sense of civic malaise at the end of the twentieth century. The empirical evidence, as shown by the quantitative data, is quite startling. "Fully 77 percent said the nation was worse off because of 'less involvement in community activities.' In 1992, three quarters of the U.S. workforce said that 'the breakdown of community' and 'selfishness' were 'serious' or 'extremely serious' problems in America."
Other commentators, such as Philip Salter [The Pursuit Of Loneliness}] have emphasized that the increasing complexity and social isolation of American contemporary life have created a dystopia of choice which became pronounced during the last half of the twentieth century: "Americans are forced into making more 'choices' per day, with 'fewer' givens, more ambiguous criteria, less environmental stability, and less social structural support than any people in history." The late Christopher Lasch, in his book The Culture of Narcissism, lamented that the etiology of these social pathologies is to be found in the American ethos which he described as a "culture of competitive individualism, which in its decadence has carried the logic of individualism to the extreme of a war of all against all, [and] the pursuit of happiness to the dead end of a narcissistic pre-occupation with the self."The demands for fiscal austerity made by the current Republican leadership - to which President Obama and many Democrats have cravenly acquiesced - can only exacerbate the sense of isolation and insecurity that American collectively experience and further impair our ability to collectively respond to crises, whether natural or man-made. Giving the wealthy a free pass after they have plundered the American economy has removed from the table much of the revenue that is needed to improve this country's crumbling infrastructure, which already lags far behind that of Japan.
The Japanese people have shown that they understand that their individual needs are inextricably tied to the collective needs of the society in which they live. It is a lesson that we need to learn before it is too late .
