The Rise and Fall of Rugged Individualism
Rugged Individualism taught us to ignore our experience: emotions, pain, illness, and abuse. For the good of everyone and the wellbeing of our organizations, we were told to keep going full bore.
That is a failed but continously repeated experiment operationalized by the few, the proud, the lucky (those who imagine themselves as masters of their own Fate). The Rugged aspect of Individualism is usually delegated to poorly paid and overworked employees (and their families). The Designated Rugged Individual, however, receives accolades, grants interviews, is recognized as a Thought Leader. In his interviews he offers his/her Hero Story with a saccharine note that I couldn’t have done it without my Team who’ve made it all possible. Usually, the team is fighting waves of nausea when they hear this. His team members, however, remain unnamed. He is the thought leader. It’s dubious that his fantastic team could have any striking, individual thoughts with which to lead. It took our Designated Rugged Individual to lead them all to the Promised Land.
Wikipedia, whose strength is that it’s not Ruggedly Individualized, does a masterful job of distilling the uniquely American history of Rugged Individualism:
Through the mid-twentieth century, the concept was championed by Hoover’s former Secretary of the Interior and long-time president of Stanford University, Ray Lyman Wilbur, who wrote: “It is common talk that every individual is entitled to economic security. The only animals and birds I know that have economic security are those that have been domesticated—and the economic security they have is controlled by the barbed-wire fence, the butcher’s knife and the desire of others. They are milked, skinned, egged or eaten up by their protectors."[4]
Martin Luther King Jr. notably remarked on the term in his speech “The Other America” on March 10, 1968: “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor."[5] Bernie Sanders referenced King’s quote in a 2019 speech.[6]
While there is much to be said for grit, we should avoid the failures of Rugged Individualism. Its dangers and costs to people and society are too great. It is for grit researchers to figure out where one ends and the other begins.
Many in modern culture say we should treat life as a meritocracy where you reap the rewards for your own hard work. Certainly, hard work should have rewards. But our belief in our own work as the reason for our success is flawed: we’re not an island. We’ve been able to accomplish good things because of the luck of our family, the time and location of our births, the kindness of strangers, health care, and a million other details explored so beautifully in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. We aren’t the masters of our own Fate.
Our belief in our personal and national sovereignties condemns us to Rugged Loneliness: lives filled with suspicion, unfulfilled dreams, and an enduring pursuit of ego. Rugged Individualism’s great fraud - now written large in Western Culture - robs present and future generations of the crowning gem of humanity’s greatest salvation, gift and strength: our ability to cooperate.
Humans make their own choices. We can choose to ask for and give help. This is the cooperative way. Of course, we need to recognize effort and achievement. But that recognition means so much more when our employees know that we truly believe we couldn’t have done it without them. That’s the cooperative way.