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Beyond Individualism
by
Charles Lamson
People in Western society often fail to see their interdependence. We like to imagine ourselves to be self-reliant, individuals making our way through the world by the strengths of talents that are ours alone. Being sociologically mindful, we can see that this notion is rather silly. If we are going to live as human beings in the modern world, we can no more get by without others than we can get by without air.
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Consider the matter of achievement. Typically, we think of achievement as resulting from individual effort. We think of people striving to do great things. We then attribute such achievements to the person's special qualities. This way of thinking is seductive because it allows us to create heroes to take credit for our successes, and to blame others for their failures (rather than noticing our contributions to those failures). But if we are sociologically mindful, we will see that individual achievement is an illusion.
Certainly, there are instances of what we call individual achievement. It is just that the achievement is not individual; it always grows out of a person's ties to others. Suppose that a person from a poor family, works hard, overcomes many hardships, and becomes a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Isn't this a matter of individual achievement? Not really. It is the result of any relationships and interactions, and it could happen only as a result of many lucky accidents
To see this, we must not forget the obvious: every judge in black robes was once a baby in diapers. None of us would be alive today, if not for the adults who cared for us, when we were infants.So there is the first blow to the illusion of individual achievement. We also must remember that as children we depended on adults to teach us, encourage us, set examples for us, and help us develop good habits. If they had not done these things, we would not have grown up to be the intelligent, kind, hardworking people we sometimes are.
Achievement also depends on others giving us opportunities to develop and display our abilities. It depends on others being able and willing to recognize the results of our efforts. It depends on powerful others not going out of their way to keep us down. Along the way, it depends on others nurturing us, opening doors for us, and giving us time on stage to prove ourselves. If these things do not happen, and happen at the right times, we cannot achieve.
Gaining a high social position also requires the existence of institutions. For anyone to become a justice of the supreme court, there must be schools, universities, law schools, a federal government, a criminal justice system, and so on, or there would be no such position to achieve, nor any paths to get there. These institutions exist only because many people continue to do things together in orderly ways. Any individual's achievement thus depends on many other people doing their parts to keep the whole show going.
Achievement also depends on collectively created ideas and values. Why, for instance, would anyone think it worthwhile to strive for power and status in the first place? Why would anyone value such things? How would people know what to do to attain such things? These ideas and values had to be created, once upon a time, and instilled in individuals. Ambition and cunning are social constructions, too.
Perhaps you would like to believe in genius as a power that springs mysteriously from inside individuals. There are, of course, people whose minds develop rapidly in certain ways. Mozart, for example, wrote symphonies when he was a child, and went on to become a great composer. We can marvel at this, but still see the need to look beyond Mozart. If Mozart's world had not included pianos, music, and music teachers, he would not have become what he did, at any age.
*SOURCE: THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE, 2ND EDITION, 2001, MICHAEL SCHWALBE, PGS. 45-47*
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