Individualist culture at root of income gap attitudes

previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 22 December 2013

TERRE HAUTE — Why don’t Americans think that growing income inequality (as well as the growing gaping disparity in wealth) is a very big problem for us? The United States is certainly exceptional when it comes to the actual levels of income inequality and public concern for it. Across the other advanced economies, as the ratio of the top 20 percent income to the bottom 20 percent income increases, public concern about income inequality grows as well. (We are number one in having the greatest inequality as measured this way among the advanced economies).

It is not because Americans are unaware of growing inequality. Polls consistently show that Americans believe that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer and that the rich are doing better while the rest of us, especially the middle class, are struggling. Nevertheless, it’s not viewed as a very big problem.

Pope Francis is popular in the U.S., attributed to, in part, his personal actions regarding the poor and his pronouncements about growing income and wealth inequality. Of course, liberals like him better than do conservatives; a solid majority of U.S. Catholics like him. President Obama is making speeches about the growing economic inequality in the U.S. (Personally, I’d like to see him volunteer one day a month at Habitat for Humanity instead of golfing with Wall Street types.) It seems disjointed to me that on the one hand, these kinds of messages ring true with Americans but, on the other, they don’t see our growing inequality as a very serious problem.

Why?

Some conservatives suggest that relative inequality is not what Americans care about, rather it is “absolute well-being.” In short, the argument goes that our poor are rich compared to the poor from other countries. However, one can argue that the poor in other advanced economies are better off than our poor, why don’t other advanced countries, with considerably less inequality than we experience in the U.S., see inequality as a very big problem? Why don’t those other countries focus on absolute well-being, too? What evidence is there that our poor are knowledgeable about the poor in other countries? Despite the obvious weaknesses with this explanation, it points in the right direction. It’s about “me,” not “us.”

The American ideology of individualism contrasts sharply with the more “collectivist” orientations of the rest of the globe. In short, an individualist culture extols the interests of the individual over the larger group, while a collectivist culture extols the group over the individual.

Protestant European countries are more individualist oriented while Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa are more collectivist. The American belief system has evolved to a point where there is considerable hostility to collectivist approaches, even to the point where some Americans object to how insurance works.

The historically strong and growing individualist cultural orientation of Americans, I think, goes a long way in explaining why Americans don’t see the growing economic inequality in the United States as a big problem, because we look out for ourselves and really don’t care (much) about others, even those in similar economic situations as ourselves.

This growing hostility to collective approaches is shown in a variety of things. Labor unions, which unquestionably have done more for working people than any other organization, are now viewed, even by a third of union families, as doing more harm than good. That all across the U.S., municipalities have scaled back virtually all public services, even first responders, who used to be untouchable when it came to any kind of cutbacks.

The “crisis” with education demonstrates this all too well, as our once vaunted public education system is being privatized from kindergarten all the way through graduate school with individuals racking up major debt because education is viewed less a public good than as a private good. Even the declining significance of religion in the U.S. fits with the growing imbalance of individualism over collectivism since one thing all religions hold true is this: There is something larger than me that I am a part.

Pope Francis, being a Latin American, comes from a society with a more collectivist orientation than what Americans are accustomed. Indeed, among Americans, Catholics tend toward a more collectivist orientation than do American Protestants. To some conservative Americans, who extoll individualism more so than liberal Americans, no wonder Pope Francis sounds “foreign” or “Marxist.”

Help the poor? The individualist responds, “No, let them help themselves. ‘We’ will provide a privately run prison cell for those who won’t.”

If you're thankful you need to show it

Previously published, Thanksgiving Day, 2012, in the Terre Haute Tribune Star

TERRE HAUTE —

No doubt, during Thanksgiving week Americans are in a thankful mood. Take away the national cue to give thanks, are we a thankful people the other 51 weeks of the year? Much suggests we take much for granted, that we assume the incredible affluence that characterizes the American lifestyle, that we feel entitled to the newest, the best and the most. We take our freedoms and the relationships in our life for granted.

The prevailing culture in the United States is “individualism.” And despite some who claim that individualism is dying or dead, my conversations with international students and with immigrants about their struggles to understand the individualistic American leads me to conclude individualism is quite robust.

“Individualism,” in short, refers to the exaltation of the individual person over the group, including family, church and state. A child learning the culture of individualism would learn such things as follow your own path, to do what you want, to follow your own interests. The epitome of individualist culture is for a person to do what they want, without regard to what others think. It is an ideology of self-sufficiency, economic independence, and self-determined values and morality. In short, it is the passionate pursuit of self-interest and those interests are determined selfishly.

Think about it. If you do it yourself, who do you thank?

It matters little about the facts on the ground whether we actually do it ourselves or we are dependent on a myriad number of others to achieve our self-interest. If we believe we did it ourselves, then does it matter? If we believe we build a successful company on our own, despite the taxpayer-paid-for infrastructure, public education of the company’s employees, and Social Security providing social insurance for their employees, who do we thank for the good outcomes? If we believe we did it ourselves, is there any need to thank anyone?

Radical individualists go so far as to view gratitude as superfluous. If everyone is just pursuing their self-interest, then a kindness or even what appears to be a “selfless” act is not that at all, but just another example of a person pursuing their self-interest. Do I need to thank someone who just did something for themselves and not for me? A child has no need to be thankful for parents because parents are just pursuing their self-interest. A radical individualist would not view Jesus Christ as giving himself up for our sins. Instead he was pursuing self-interest, he did it for himself, the forgiveness of our sins is just a residual benefit of his own radical pursuit of self-interest. It’s no different than the rich person who builds a grand home in the neighborhood enhancing the value of your home.

What about those who do show gratitude to others? Research suggests that showing gratitude can have measurable positive effects on people. Positive effects can be shown for mood, various hormones, pleasure-related neurotransmitters, the immune system, stress, heart health, blood pressure and blood sugar.

It seems like a good thing for people to show gratitude. It’s in one’s best self-interest with all those health benefits to show gratitude to those we feel thankful for. The trick it seems is to ignore the ideology of individualism, to recognize the inherent interdependent social basis and (at times selfless) cooperation that makes our world work, and show gratitude to those people who are important to us and reap the personal health benefits of doing so.

Give thanks to the important people in your life. Given the health benefits, nothing is more self-interested than being thankful and showing it.

Do social networks actually curb individualism?

previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 7/20/08

Is a new generation gap opening? While the term “generation gap” is often used to describe the different tastes, fashions and generational experiences of children and their parents and grandparents, the term originally arose in the 1960s referring to the differences in the Baby Boom generation and their parents and grandparents. The best explanation for it, other than the incredible size of the Baby Boomers, is that the Boomers were the first generation to be raised on television, that the gap was a case of the influence of television.

Have advances in computer technology and the growing presence and importance of the Internet created a similar gap with today’s youth and its Baby Boomer parents and grandparents?

I admit sometimes to being baffled and amazed (amaffled?) at how high schoolers and college students utilize the “social networking” sites. If I already sound like I am sprinkling in a foreign language, then that is more evidence for the presence of a gap. Social networking Web sites are just Web-based software where communities of people can share information through a variety of means: e-mail, text postings, pictures, videos, chatting, file-sharing. At this point, I will not be surprised at the first pregnancy conceived entirely through some kind of file-sharing breakthrough.

In my early 20s, I began using the computer to communicate through e-mail and an early form of “instant messaging.” Both were crude compared to today’s remarkable technologies. And while I am not on the cutting edge of these technologies, I do utilize them both professionally and personally. Things, however, are changing.

Ten years ago many of my college students were computer illiterate and I spent time introducing them to the use of e-mail and simple file-sharing. I don’t have to do that anymore. Just a few short years ago, I could contact any student, quickly, with e-mail. But today, students don’t check their e-mail as much as they used to, because of the use of the social networking sites and text messaging on their cell phones.

The social networking sites are everywhere on the Web. A quick Google search shows hundreds and hundreds of social networking sites with MySpace and Facebook among the most popular. Given less press, however, is AdultFriendFinder, which has over 20 million registered users, where adults seek adults for pleasure.

Most of the press coverage of the networking sites are about the perils of such sites for their mostly young users: stalking by online predators; vicious gossip; faux sites that caricature authorities; and harassment. Recently, the fundraising prowess of Sen. Obama and the use of social networking sites in political campaigning received more positive press coverage.

I also see something of a “borg”-like quality for those who use these sites as a central means of communication. The “borg” were an alien menace species from the Star Trek television series which was technologically connected to each other to create a single shared consciousness. All borg heard the thoughts of all other borg. No individuality, which is what the scary part of them was.

I am not a practicing member of a social networking site and do not maintain a Facebook or MySpace page (I do maintain a blog, however). Observing my high school-age daughter and her college-age sister integrate these networking sites into their lives is a sharp contrast to my own experiences. Information flows heavy and fast through these sites. It is borg-like.

For instance, when my older daughter came home for the summer and appeared to have snagged a job, she immediately posted something to her social networking site, saying something like “I am now selling X.” It seemed almost instantaneous that her network of friends identified the company, had experience with it, and warned her off working for them. I don’t need convincing of the power of social networks, but the integration of the network into what seemed almost like real-time decision-making is incredible to me.

Indeed, the daily (hourly?) updating of personal information on these sites, about oneself and others in one’s community, and the volume of text messaging, creates a crude form of shared consciousness. The collective impulse of today’s high schoolers and college students is showing up in many ways, from the party bus for proms (instead of the limousine) to a redefinition of romance. The collective is in, and individualism (not necessarily individuality) seems out.

When will we have implantable transceivers in our heads so we can hear each other’s thoughts?