The Price of Individualism Original Oratory 2025
When I told my 5th grade teacher that my grandparents were coming to visit for four months, her reaction was at best, horrified. She gasped, and said “That’s so stressful!” I laughed but internally, I was confused as to how something so normal could be cause for alarm. If you’re thinking along the same lines as I was, it’s probably a result of your cultural background. And if you’re as terrified as my teacher was at the prospect of your in-laws moving in for half a year, that reaction is also highly related to identity.
American individualism is a tale as old as time, which has shaped us in ways we don’t even think about. According to the Oxford dictionary, individualism is a philosophy that prioritizes the needs, wants, and ambitions of the individual over those of larger communities. The American flavor referred to as ‘rugged individualism’ has its roots in the expanding frontier life of the 19th century, where white Americans searched for wealth through self sufficiency and sheer ambition.
In modern society, individualism is commonly manifested in ideals regarding the “self-made man”, “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”, and “the American Dream”. The US is consistently ranked the most individualistic country in the world.
In actuality, individualism is romanticized and can cause much more harm than good, on the personal and societal level.
So today, let's explore the darker sides of individualism in the US: selfishness, the loneliness epidemic, and the myth of the self-made man.
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The biggest problem with individualism is staring us right in the face: it’s an inherently selfish philosophy. It involves putting your own goals and ambitions above those of the larger community.
This can be particularly dangerous in times of crisis.
Researcher Ting Xu, from the University of Virginia, explained, “In good times, individualism encourages effort and innovation. But in bad times, it can be very costly, because it disincentivizes collective actions that are particularly important when facing challenges.”
Most of us saw this play out in real time. Let me set the scene.
It’s March of 2020, and you’ve just heard word of a virus that’s spreading like wildfire across the world. People are being encouraged to stay home and to avoid contact with those outside their household. As the panic takes over, there’s only one path of action in sight: grab all the toilet paper you can fit in your cart at Costco and make a break for it. Unfortunately, thousands of other Americans had the same idea, and mass hoarding worsened the effects of shortages across the country.
The reluctance of Americans to follow social distancing protocol also underscores heavier consequences to individualism.
During COVID, the researchers from UVA found the same pattern across 83 countries: individualistic countries were less likely to abide by social distancing rules and had surging infection rates. Simultaneously, Americans of immigrant backgrounds were more likely to make sacrifices to ensure public safety.
This make sense: if you’re living in a society that tells you to put your own needs first, why would you sacrifice your own convenience for an invisible, unknowable public good?
Some people ignored social distancing guidelines because they weren’t worried about getting COVID. But for Americans who are immunocompromised or elderly, COVID19 posed a very real threat to their lives. When others chose to flout the restrictions, it was their safety being put at risk and the country struggled to protect vulnerable individuals from the rising spread of the virus.
Now that we understand how engaging in individualism can hurt others, let's also look at how it hurts ourselves.
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The French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville believed individualism “disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends.”
Tocqueville’s prediction has largely come true.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on loneliness in 2023, Americans have been spending increasing amounts of time on their own while social participation in relationships has significantly declined.
Over the past few decades, what scientists describe as a loneliness epidemic has spread through the nation. This crisis was severely exacerbated by the COVID19 Pandemic when everyone had to stay home and support system dissolved.
However, this loneliness epidemic has not impacted all people equally.
Modern individualism in America is manifested in the type of family structures that are sought after. American culture places an emphasis on the nuclear family: a picture perfect image of the parents, their two and a half children, and a golden retriever, all carefully tucked behind a white picket fence.
Not all cultures subscribe to the same ideal. In fact, many cultures of the east encourage generational living, where the extended family ideally serves as an automatic community.
The nuclear family structure keeps the family small and contained, making it easier to further the goals of the members within it. Simultaneously, these smaller family units lack the support systems built into their larger counterparts.
If the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” applies in other countries, in the US, that work is taken on directly by parents, which is just one of the examples of how individualism promotes isolation from other community members, all in the name of independence.
Which brings me to my third point. Individualism relies on complete self reliance, promoting the myth of the self-made man.
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In his 1872 “Self Made Man” speech, leading abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass rejected the existence of any such thing.
“That term implies an individual independence of the past and present which can never exist,” Douglas said.
I don’t think this means that personal effort and achievement are irrelevant. However, it’s only a partial story to ignore advantages some were born with.
Take Jeff Bezos for example: the second richest person in the world. He gained his fortune by quitting his banking job and inventing Amazon at just 30 years old, and individualists would tell you he is the pinnacle of a self made man. What they wouldn’t say is that, according to CNBC, his parents gave him $250 thousand dollars to start the company. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s a universal opportunity to ask your parents for a quarter of a million dollars to pursue your dreams. So, yes, Bezos had a great idea and brought it to reality. But there are people in the world who might have even better ideas but lack the means to get them off the ground.
The idea of the “self made man” is no more than an individualist’s myth that allows people to take full responsibility for their success while ignoring the help they’ve had to get there.
For me, this point is an especially important one to remember. We’re in a room with speech and debate kids. I know most of us are probably rampant over-achievers who take great pride in our personal work. But it is dangerous to ignore that we are products of circumstance, and in many cases, privilege. At my school at least, there’s incessant comparison of test scores, grades, extracurriculars, and above all, college applications. But for most of the students I know, it’s never been a question of if we’ll get into college. That always seemed like a given. It is more of a question of whether each student can get into a top ten school, and I am amazed at the astounding privilege my peers and I have to be able to frame the future in such a way.
I am lucky that I am here, that I can afford to pay the competition fees, that I can ask my mom to take an entire day off for judging. I am still proud of the work it took me to get here, but can’t forget that I haven’t just made good choices, I’ve had good choices offered to me.
No success we have in life will be an absolute result of our own work. No failure will be either. Only in relinquishing our societal grip on individualism can we also move on from the myth of the “self-made man”.
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In the US, individualism is romanticized and infused into all aspects of our cultural identity. We’re encouraged to look out for ourselves, stay isolated, and pretend success begins and ends with personal ability.
How do we change our culture of individualism? It starts, ironically, on the individual level. Once aware of how individualism is ingrained in American culture, we can identify it more easily, and question it when it comes up.
Try to engage in your community and connect with people around you, both for your benefit and for theirs. These interactions build support systems and decrease loneliness while also underscoring the consequences of your actions. People are less likely to make decisions that harm others if they can see the people at risk face to face.
If we don’t step away from individualism, we risk continuing to live by a philosophy that actively hurts everyone around us as well as ourselves.
I’m just saying: depending on what your in-laws are like, a slightly longer visit might not be such a horrible idea after all.
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Bibliography
Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Bonner, Michael. “The Problem of Hyper-Individualism.” City Journal, August 4, 2023. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-problem-of-hyper-individualism.
Carroll, Patrick, and Dan Sanchez. “Individualism: A Deeply American Philosophy.” fee.org, July 2, 2022. https://fee.org/resources/individualism-a-deeply-american-philosophy/.
Frederick Douglass, “Self Made Man,” 1872.
Murthy, Vivek. “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” 2023. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf.
Newman, Caroline. “Big Data Analytics Shows How America’s Individualism Complicates Coronavirus Response.” UVA Today, July 6, 2020. https://news.virginia.edu/content/big-data-analytics-shows-how-americas-individualism-complicates-coronavirus-response.
Zameena Mejia. “Jeff Bezos Got His Parents to Invest Nearly $250,000 in Amazon in 1995 — They Might Be Worth $30 Billion Today.” CNBC. CNBC, August 2, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/how-jeff-bezos-got-his-parents-to-invest-in-amazon--turning-them-into.html.
