'The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.' That was the spirit that crossed the plains, and such was the spirit of every emigrant who left Europe. There is good blood in your veins, compadre!"
Absolutely. It's a little-known and oft-overlooked fact of history that wagon trains headed west would draw up a "wagon train charter" before setting off, under which the exact responsibilities of each member of the expedition were carefully delineated. All but the youngest of children were expected to carry their fair share of the load; and the punishment for shirking was abandonment, being left in the wilderness to die. The pioneers could ill afford slackers, and wouldn't hesitate to leave them to the wolves and the buzzards.
This is why the American ideal of "rugged individualism" is a myth: like any group of humans in life-or-death circumstances, American pioneers became collectivists. Failure to do your part for the group jeopardized the entire group, and was met with harsh punishment.
Would you call 100 devs "collectivists" because they work together? A definition that broad is meaningless.
Even if such a definition had any validity, the group was voluntary and was small enough that individual accountability was immediately enforceable. Deviation from the contract once signed was punished by death (effectively). In addition, failure to sign on didn't have a group hunting you down and punishing you. As a final note, those groups were temporary -- a means to an end at which point the individual family unit again reigned supreme.
To be comparable with the common political view, every person would have to agree to join, he arrangement would be temporary, the punishment for violation would be death, and choosing not to join would not be a disadvantage.
It's interesting the article doesn't even discuss the inherent assumption necessary for the implication, which is whether the individuality of migrants in the 19th and early 20th century is related to the individuality of their descendents in modern day.
Different environments result in, over time, different ideologies— humans follow a typical evolutionary path with this, but the adjustments in this case are mental rather than physical.
I love to take risk, but some of my family is from the Soviet Union, and they're extremely risk-averse. Their idea of success in life is to have a stable career as a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.
One ideology isn't inherently better, it's just about which ideology is better suited for which environment. If I were placed in the Soviet Union, I would probably die quickly with my risk tolerance. Meanwhile, while their recipe for conservative success produces solid results in the United States, I would argue that a higher tolerance for risk would produce a better average performance.
The most critical part of this lasting is, of course, what percent of that ideology is inherited rather than questioned... how 'sticky' that culture is, when applied to the immigrant's children. While complex, this is often a function of the closeness of the family unit in that given culture.
This is part of the mythology of the American frontier. Just as America itself was a land of untapped potential for European settlers who had enough of the decadent, stifling old countries of Europe, the West was a land of untapped potential for Americans who had enough of the decadent, stifling East Coast. Just as unpopular New religious sects left for America, the Mormons left for Utah. The gold and silver rushes were outlets for an ambitious American Dream. The verdant fields and valleys of Oregon and California were outlets for ambitions of their own.
The US ran out of frontier around the turn of the 20th century. And this is problematic, because no populations is going to stay as risk-tolerant and ambitious as the population that already risked their lives to travel there in the first place. Immigration might actually refresh these attitudes, but you’d expect them to erode over time. Perhaps they have.
Very true. People wonder why the US is more individualistic and it's a combination of attracting people with that mindset (and repelling people without it) along with people where it's how they grew up.
I don't believe this. Genetics does not work this way or this quick, Its purely cultural.
As an example, I've also read the reverse whereby Scandinavians that went to the midwest brought their "community spirit" with them that's not evident in other states populations. You are also forgetting the vast networks that people who came over went in to, Scandinavian, Irish, Germans etc all had support systems over here from people who came over initially, that enabled them to find housing, jobs and other support services.
Humans need each other to survive. Period. This whole idea of individualism or exceptionalism is really just a waste of intellectual time that could be spent on fixing real issues.
An example of a true individualist was the Unabomber. And he is nothing to aspire to or worship.
This was always my theory. It would also explain some of the crazy religiousness in the US, and the atheism in Sweden.
Essentially:
In the mid 1800s there were two reasons for Swedes to emigrate to America. And out of popultion of four million people, one million did emigrate.
The two reasons:
a) starvation - this triggered the smart individualists to migrate to the US (in my mind, these are the ones that has helped fueled the US to a super power over the years)
b) religious persecution - loads of super religious people from various christian sects migrated to the US because of the higher degree of religious freedom over there (in my mind, these people are a big reason for why your politics are so broken)
This is a weak-ass postulate. Where to even start?
Individualism wasn't responsible for the poverty, lack of land for newborns, depressions, war and political oppression that caused Europeans to move to the U.S.
Not to mention the 'agents' of U.S. companies looking for workers who were sent to Europe to promise the 'individualists' anything. Or the Homestead Act ... it's pretty hard to get more socialistic than more-or-less giving away a quarter-acre of land to all comers in return for a weak promise.
Do i need to state the obvious that scandis are among the most individualist cultures in the world? Which is probably precisely the reason why they became welfare state: when you can't rely on family or friends for old age, you need to create a faceless contract. Aren't they notorious for their personal spaces, hard to get to talking and introspection?
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 50.4 ms ] thread'The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.' That was the spirit that crossed the plains, and such was the spirit of every emigrant who left Europe. There is good blood in your veins, compadre!"
This is why the American ideal of "rugged individualism" is a myth: like any group of humans in life-or-death circumstances, American pioneers became collectivists. Failure to do your part for the group jeopardized the entire group, and was met with harsh punishment.
Even if such a definition had any validity, the group was voluntary and was small enough that individual accountability was immediately enforceable. Deviation from the contract once signed was punished by death (effectively). In addition, failure to sign on didn't have a group hunting you down and punishing you. As a final note, those groups were temporary -- a means to an end at which point the individual family unit again reigned supreme.
To be comparable with the common political view, every person would have to agree to join, he arrangement would be temporary, the punishment for violation would be death, and choosing not to join would not be a disadvantage.
Different environments result in, over time, different ideologies— humans follow a typical evolutionary path with this, but the adjustments in this case are mental rather than physical.
I love to take risk, but some of my family is from the Soviet Union, and they're extremely risk-averse. Their idea of success in life is to have a stable career as a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.
One ideology isn't inherently better, it's just about which ideology is better suited for which environment. If I were placed in the Soviet Union, I would probably die quickly with my risk tolerance. Meanwhile, while their recipe for conservative success produces solid results in the United States, I would argue that a higher tolerance for risk would produce a better average performance.
The most critical part of this lasting is, of course, what percent of that ideology is inherited rather than questioned... how 'sticky' that culture is, when applied to the immigrant's children. While complex, this is often a function of the closeness of the family unit in that given culture.
The US ran out of frontier around the turn of the 20th century. And this is problematic, because no populations is going to stay as risk-tolerant and ambitious as the population that already risked their lives to travel there in the first place. Immigration might actually refresh these attitudes, but you’d expect them to erode over time. Perhaps they have.
As an example, I've also read the reverse whereby Scandinavians that went to the midwest brought their "community spirit" with them that's not evident in other states populations. You are also forgetting the vast networks that people who came over went in to, Scandinavian, Irish, Germans etc all had support systems over here from people who came over initially, that enabled them to find housing, jobs and other support services.
Humans need each other to survive. Period. This whole idea of individualism or exceptionalism is really just a waste of intellectual time that could be spent on fixing real issues.
An example of a true individualist was the Unabomber. And he is nothing to aspire to or worship.
Essentially:
In the mid 1800s there were two reasons for Swedes to emigrate to America. And out of popultion of four million people, one million did emigrate.
The two reasons:
a) starvation - this triggered the smart individualists to migrate to the US (in my mind, these are the ones that has helped fueled the US to a super power over the years)
b) religious persecution - loads of super religious people from various christian sects migrated to the US because of the higher degree of religious freedom over there (in my mind, these people are a big reason for why your politics are so broken)
Individualism wasn't responsible for the poverty, lack of land for newborns, depressions, war and political oppression that caused Europeans to move to the U.S.
Not to mention the 'agents' of U.S. companies looking for workers who were sent to Europe to promise the 'individualists' anything. Or the Homestead Act ... it's pretty hard to get more socialistic than more-or-less giving away a quarter-acre of land to all comers in return for a weak promise.