Is being American destroying America?

Social harmony in America is unnatural.  We’re not wired for it.  Americans have many qualities, but, above all, we’re individualistic—the most individualistic culture on earth. 

We are proud of our individualism. If you ask any one of us to describe what it means to be American, the word individual, in some form, always comes up. But, American individualism is extreme. So extreme, in fact, that it has on more than one occasion threatened our republic.  Our extreme individualism helped spark the American Revolution, and the Civil War, and it’s one reason Americans are divided today.  We will always be divided until we figure out a way to act less like Americans.

Other highly individualistic societies, like those in Scandinavia, are more egalitarian in their individualism. Sociologists say America’s version of individualism is extreme because of its competitiveness.  

Ironically, extreme individualism has made the U.S. the envy of the world.  It’s the source of our prized freedom of speech, for example.  And, it drives the innovation that has made America the wealthiest nation in human history.  But, it’s been a curse too.    

Stephen Dubner, the journalist and host of the popular podcast Freakonomics, invited sociologists on his showin 2021 to help explain America’s extreme individualism. He wanted to understand why, as he put it, “Americans are less likely to conform in the name of social harmony.”  

“Americans are self-enhancing, which means they try to promote their attributes, and are self-centered,” Joe Henrick, the environmental biologist told Dubner.  “The U.S. tends to not just be individualistic, but very competitive in its individualism,” added Michele Gelfand of Stanford University.  “In other words,” observed Dubner, “Americans don’t just see other people as individuals, we see them as individuals with whom we are in competition.”

It's no coincidence that Americans are this way.  The U.S. was founded by courageous and independent-minded individuals who left their comparatively more collective homelands in 17^th century Europe to come here.  Today, the U.S. has become a hotbed for the world’s most individualistic people.  No other culture in the world values individualism more than Americans.  The data prove it. 

For decades, behavioral psychologists Geert Hofstede, and his son Gert Jan Hofstede, have tracked and measured the personalities of nations as a part of their dimensions of national culture index.  They measured cultural characteristics such as internal power dynamics, freedom of expression and gender relationships to determine how a country’s cultural values impact societal behavior.  In the category of individualism, the U.S. consistently tops the list. The Hofstedes describe individualistic societies as those in which competition exists not just between groups, but also between individuals; where societal harmony is comparatively less important when completing a group task; and, where disunity makes careful communication more vital than in more collective societies. 

Americans don’t have to be familiar with the work of the Hofstedes to know they are right.  Americans know we are competitive and highly individualistic.  Viewed through the lens of our extreme individualism, it’s clear why there is so much division today—and, why we have historically struggled to get along.

The lens of extreme individualism is a tool for understanding us.  Through such a lens, our resistance to diversity and inclusion efforts like affirmative action and DEI makes sense.  Too many Americans seem to value competition more than they do cohesion.  So, instead of seeing DEI as an opportunity to better unite as a country, many of them only see it in zero-sum terms: as an effort to give one group an advantage over another.  The concept of cohesion never enters the equation. 

As a Black man, the lens of extreme individualism has been particularly helpful to my understanding of American history.  I have often interpreted hostility towards African Americans in this country as mere racism, but through the lens of extreme individualism, racism is only a symptom of a larger, more complex and destructive, problem.