Hmm. I think here we are approaching an area where I do disagree with you somewhat. It’s probably too complicated for a comment, but it has to do with individualism. I largely agree with you on the diagnosis of the problems, and agree with much of the analysis, but I get off the board at the point where Trueman and others lay the blame for the decline of community on individualism. Actually, I wrote a response to a recent article in the Dispatch by Joe Pitts, and I think my response will be more clarifying than I can be here. I’ll try to explain a little.
1. I agree that not everything associated with individualism is good and worthy of celebration and largely agree regarding the analysis of the 1960s and Walt Whitman and expressive individualism. However, I don’t see it as quite as pernicious as many, more as something mostly silly.
2. It should be pointed out that the gradual encroachment of the nanny state was predicted by such figures as Tocqueville and the neoconservatives to have precisely the atomizing effect on society which is now blamed on an excess of individualism.
3. I consider myself to be an individualist. I’m not enamored with communitarianism. I’ll point out that communitarianism used to be a left-wing thing. Putnam and Nisbet were on the left. They didn’t like the emphasis rightists placed on personal responsibility and they wanted a more “caring” state (paternalistic), which I consider to be the cause of much of this breakdown.
5. I tend to emphasize such aspects of individualism as individual responsibility, natural rights, liberty, and agency. I’m an individualist because I’m on the bleeding libertarian edge of conservatism.
6. Trueman says he isn’t part of the New Right, but he is somewhat adjacent to it. The New Right is closer to “Red Toryism,” a paternalistic, left-wing economy married to a socially-conservative society.
7. I can remember when individualism was seen as a right-wing thing. Certainly the Soviets thought it was, and from the speeches of Reagan and Bush, they did too. Most Marxists will still say this, as will some figures like Ayn Rand. I do think it’s a little more complicated - there are leftish variety and rightish varieties, just as there are leftish varieties and rightish varieties of communitarianism. But ultimately I do think there is something serious and important about the idea that one of the most fundamental conflicts is between individualism and collectivism, and that the latter is more leftist and the former more rightist.
As far as solutions go, I think emphasizing individual responsibility and natural rights is very important. It’s important to impress upon young people that being an individual is more about what you do, than what you say, and that agency is an active virtue. You participate in society as an individual, and through your actions you leave a mark on the world. Also, I think it’s important to tell the kids these days to knock it off with the “self-definition” stuff. Everyone is an individual. They were born individuals. They don’t need to spend time in introspection to “become” individuals. They should be living their lives, not worrying about their inner life.
I think emphasizing those things will naturally lead to a more vigorous society as human nature reasserts itself. Technology plays a big role, and that will need to be dealt with, but that’s a topic for another day.
Hmm. I think here we are approaching an area where I do disagree with you somewhat. It’s probably too complicated for a comment, but it has to do with individualism. I largely agree with you on the diagnosis of the problems, and agree with much of the analysis, but I get off the board at the point where Trueman and others lay the blame for the decline of community on individualism. Actually, I wrote a response to a recent article in the Dispatch by Joe Pitts, and I think my response will be more clarifying than I can be here. I’ll try to explain a little.
1. I agree that not everything associated with individualism is good and worthy of celebration and largely agree regarding the analysis of the 1960s and Walt Whitman and expressive individualism. However, I don’t see it as quite as pernicious as many, more as something mostly silly.
2. It should be pointed out that the gradual encroachment of the nanny state was predicted by such figures as Tocqueville and the neoconservatives to have precisely the atomizing effect on society which is now blamed on an excess of individualism.
3. I consider myself to be an individualist. I’m not enamored with communitarianism. I’ll point out that communitarianism used to be a left-wing thing. Putnam and Nisbet were on the left. They didn’t like the emphasis rightists placed on personal responsibility and they wanted a more “caring” state (paternalistic), which I consider to be the cause of much of this breakdown.
5. I tend to emphasize such aspects of individualism as individual responsibility, natural rights, liberty, and agency. I’m an individualist because I’m on the bleeding libertarian edge of conservatism.
6. Trueman says he isn’t part of the New Right, but he is somewhat adjacent to it. The New Right is closer to “Red Toryism,” a paternalistic, left-wing economy married to a socially-conservative society.
7. I can remember when individualism was seen as a right-wing thing. Certainly the Soviets thought it was, and from the speeches of Reagan and Bush, they did too. Most Marxists will still say this, as will some figures like Ayn Rand. I do think it’s a little more complicated - there are leftish variety and rightish varieties, just as there are leftish varieties and rightish varieties of communitarianism. But ultimately I do think there is something serious and important about the idea that one of the most fundamental conflicts is between individualism and collectivism, and that the latter is more leftist and the former more rightist.
As far as solutions go, I think emphasizing individual responsibility and natural rights is very important. It’s important to impress upon young people that being an individual is more about what you do, than what you say, and that agency is an active virtue. You participate in society as an individual, and through your actions you leave a mark on the world. Also, I think it’s important to tell the kids these days to knock it off with the “self-definition” stuff. Everyone is an individual. They were born individuals. They don’t need to spend time in introspection to “become” individuals. They should be living their lives, not worrying about their inner life.
I think emphasizing those things will naturally lead to a more vigorous society as human nature reasserts itself. Technology plays a big role, and that will need to be dealt with, but that’s a topic for another day.