THE MYTH OF INDIVIDUALISM: HOW SOCIAL FORCES SHAPE OUR LIVES

1. THE MYTH OF INDIVIDUALISM: HOW SOCIAL FORCES SHAPE OUR LIVES Peter Callero

2. CUTURE OF INDIVIDUALISMCh. 1 • What is the meaning of the culture of individualism? Give examples. • What’s wrong with the culture of individualism? • In what ways is capitalism built on the myth of individualism? • How is economic individualism problematic?

3. Ted Kaczynski

4. EXTREME INDIVDUALISM Cabin in the woods outside of Lincoln, Montana

7. SNL Skit

8. DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUALISM “Individualism is the belief system that privileges the individual over the group, private life over public life, and personal expression over social experience; it is a worldview where autonomy, independence, and self-reliance are highly valued and though to be natural; and it is an ideology based on self-determination, where free actors are assumed to make choices that have direct consequences for their own unique destiny” Myth of Individualism, p. 17

9. How is the culture of individualism is expressed: • Ideas about how to raise children such as individualism vs. communualism (It Takes a Village) • Aphorisms and a value system that reinforce individualism: “You have no one to blame but yourself” • Masculine characteristics are reinforced • Economic Individualism- private property, individual achievement, capitalism

10. Celebrate community and selfish individualism Celebrate the lone male • Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree • Frank Capra’s, It’s a Wonderful Life • Dr. Seuss, The Lorax • Dr. House • Monk • James Bond • Clark Kent

11. How is individualism problematic?

12. Constructs a false dichotomy between self and society. • Overemphasize “personal responsibility” (individual strategies) and de-emphasize collective or structural solutions to problems. • Contributes to increasing isolation and less community involvement (“Bowling Alone”). • Social problems are understood as individual problems.