As the American poverty rate hits a fifty-year high, the polar icecaps melt, and the global economy dovetails into a seemingly endless downward spiral, it's high time we examined one of our most popular and destructive cultural values: the myth of the American individual-A.K.A "the self made man."
We Americans are obsessed with individualism. The idea of the self-made man is part of our collective DNA. As a child, I couldn't scrape my knee without some self-obsessed, self-absorbed grown up telling me, "You've got to pull yourself up by the bootstrap, Son. 'Cuz, nobody's gonna do it for ya." And so I did because I believed them. Until, that is, I grew up and turned an honest eye out unto the world.
Like most fanatics, we believe in the idea of American individualism-despite all evidence to the contrary-with religious-like fervor, blind faith, and stubborn ignorance. But the self-made man is a myth. After all, no one accomplishes anything entirely by his or herself. Human beings are social creatures. And as such, we are interconnected, especially in an age of globalization. Be it our successes or our struggles, we win and lose together. From striking teachers in Chicago to sweatshop workers in Vietnam, our fate and our well-being are irrevocably interlocked. Our individual trials have become our collective struggle. As Zen Master, Yasutani Roshi, once said, "The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there."
Whether it's Steve Jobs, Tiger Woods, or Warren Buffet, any close and honest observation of success shatters the notion of the self-made man. After all, it really does "take a village to raise a child."
Let's take music as an example because it's both a passion and an obsession of mine. As all accomplished performers know, the idea of the self-made musician is preposterous. Like many other trades, learning to play music is an apprentice-based system. In the beginning, aspiring guitarists hire experienced professionals to teach them the basics. Once our budding guitarist has mastered the basic chords and scales, built a small repertoire, and learned to take a solo or two, he usually joins a band. But the apprenticeship doesn't end there. Our budding guitarist learns from his peers "on the job" and gets better with every gig, show, and session played.
With each new record he hears or every player he meets, our ambitious guitarist is connecting with the musical community as a whole for continued success and provided inspiration. Thus, the apprenticeship never ends, even at the highest levels.
The same rings true for professional athletes, actors, writers, politicians, or entrepreneurs. No one achieves anything without the aid of parents, teachers, peers, or the community. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality."
In a time of crisis, while so many of us are feeling the crunch of poverty, the scorch of global warming, or the squeeze of a global recession, it's high time we shed our obsession with the myth of the American individual and appreciate our connection to each other and with the rest of the world. As John Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
After all, together we rise and divided we fall.
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