On Self-Reliance and Individual Responsibility

The Conservative Narrative quite often makes the claim that Progressive/Liberal minded folk are moving away from the American/Western ideals of Self Reliance and Individual Responsibility. The claim (I will try to sum it up as cleanly and accurately as possible) is that the Progressive social policies, and thus the underlying moral-ethical forces behind those policies, creates a sense of entitlement that breeds laziness and spreads the basic idea that “someone else will take care of me/this/that/the world.” The contention is that the Progressive philosophy works to divorce man from responsibility and teaches him to wait for someone else to foot the bill.

As we get beyond the semantics of particular issues, we see Conservative statements promoting self-reliance and individual responsibility cropping up more and more often. Progressivism’s lack of these virtues is the root of Progressive social policies, and an epidemic loss of Self-Reliance and Individual Responsibility will be the ultimate result of the implementation of the Progressive Agenda—and will strangle what is left of the gasping American Dream.

Is that a fair enough rephrase of the idea?

First, I want to get into something semantic. The idea of “Self-Reliance” is an old one in America. The term was raised to the height of the American Identity by Emerson in his essay titled ‘Self-Reliance.’ When folks use the phrase, they are calling upon an emotional appeal back to the “good old days” of the American Revolution and Western Frontier. The Conservative Narrative creates a marriage between the concepts of Self-Reliance and economics. It is used as an argument against welfare and entitlement spending (though never against Social Security of Medicare…). In the narrative, American Self-Reliance has become synonymous with self-sufficiency.

However, that is NOT what Emerson’s essay is about. The essay includes lines such as “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist,” “Insist on yourself; never imitate,” and, one of my personal favorites, “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.” His essay is not about material subsistence, it is about ideals (material subsistence may well BE one of your ideals, but saying that self-reliance is about subsistence is putting the philosophical cart before the horse).

The other catchword that I mentioned is “Individual Responsibility.” As I conceptualize it, Individual Responsibility addresses the need for people to own and be consistent their principals—though again, the narrative has co-opted the concept of Individual Responsibility to make it an economic concept. However, again, I think that is a misuse and oversimplification of the idea of Individual Responsibility. Individual Responsibility is about principals (whatever they may be)—and individuals being accountable to acting on those beliefs.

If your principals are New Testament Judeo-Christian, you would expect them to live with charity, humility and acceptance of others. I think it’s important to remember that the only time Jesus got angry was when he found the money changers outside the temple and threw over their tables. Ponder that one a second: the only time he ever got angry was when his own people were not living consistently with their own belief system. He was never angry with the pagans or heathens or people who did not share his beliefs. He told his Disciples that if they were not received well in a town to dust off their feet and move on—long gone are the Old Testament days of turning all of the Sodomites into pillars of salt!

Financial issues were always secondary to Jesus. Hell, he made Judas the Treasurer. Think about THAT one a moment—the one who betrayed Jesus was the one who was focusing on the finances rather than the ideals. Here we can have a chicken and the egg debate, was he destined to betray Jesus, did managing the money corrupt him, etc. I don’t know. I just know the surface fact: the man who was always thinking about the money is the one who put profit over principals.

Now—sorry for taking the slow boat back to topicville… but this is why I get so upset when I see the Conservative Narrative questioning/criticizing/disparaging the lack of Self-Reliance and Individual Responsibility of Progressives.

For a Progressive, personal profit is not the driving principal. Many of us belief that profit and prosperity is best achieved as a side effect of a healthy society. That’s why concepts such as affordable education, access to healthcare and intelligent regulation are important tenants to Progressives. Seeds scattered on stony, shallow, scorched or thorny soils do not thrive.

When early Americans met hardships, discrimination and a lack of opportunity they simply moved west and found new soil to cultivate and make their own. Moving west can no longer solve our problems (actually, given CA’s economy, moving west would only make them worse). Western expansionism was fantastically successful.... 100 years ago. Today, we can’t simply find somewhere else to take root. We have to cultivate. That is the core of the Progressive mindset.

The Crux?

We no longer have the room to run a free range economy. The world is becoming a cramped and competitive place. Conservatives often draw upon ideals of the old west—they should keep looking at it and study what happened after western expansion—law was brought to the lawless areas, property was divided, cities were formed and fields were cultivated. Why?—out of necessity so that we could survive and prosper as a society.

Progressives believe that it is our responsibility, as citizens, to shape our society and economy through government. They do not believe in relying on the “Indivisible Hand of the Market” to solve our social and economic problems. Indeed—they tend to be Self-Reliant and believe that it is the citizen’s responsibility to shape society, rather than just wait for some mysterious force to come along and clean up the mess that we and our parents made.