Plague Journal (48): On the failure of individualism in a time of crisis

Front Porch Republic is one of my favorite online magazines. They completely bypass the familiar left/right binary, the knee-jerk libs vs. conservatives understanding of every issue that comes down the pike. You won't find the repetition of familiar partisan talking-points there; instead, a kind of communitarian philosophy that draws much from the work of Wendell Berry.

Josh Pauling's essay, Coming Home, COVID-19 Style, is a case in point. Pauling is talking about how the COVID-19 lockdown hits the single person, living alone, very hard. He outlines the rise of the individualist ethic and contrasts that with the family-based tradition that preceded it. He puts much of the blame for the rise of individualism on the Industrial Revolution and the resulting migration of many rural people to the city. It's an interesting piece, and you should read the whole thing.

This juxtaposition of the individualist love of freedom with the family-based ethic of shared responsibility hits home to me in a personal way. When I was a young man I would have considered myself a full-blown individualist (I was probably pretty obnoxious about it too). Most of my friends shared this philosophy, which emphasized the throwing off of cultural restraints which we connected with the discredited values of the previous generation. A generational peer who loved his family and didn't want to leave them far behind would have seemed strange to me. 

Then it turned out my girlfriend was pregnant. Without hesitation we decided to get married (42 years later, I can say, also without hesitation, that it was a good decision). There was never any question but that we would have the baby (though some people were eager to convince us we should question it). We were both broke, both ridiculously naive about parenting, but our instincts were toward this natural next step of starting a family. But what was the most common reaction among our friends? "Won't having a baby cut into your freedom? You know, to hang with your friends, do whatever you want, whenever you want?"

Well, they were sure right about that, and my wife and I knew it from the start, and we both accepted that reality. But even at the time it was a reaction that bothered me, and it came to seem emblematic of my own generation's unique level of selfishness. I'm sure I still considered myself an "individualist" long after this point, but I should have known better. It's an attitude, a stance toward the word, that never did me a lick of good.