Americans and Individualism Essay -- essays research papers

The United States of America is the land of the free, the land ofopportunity, the wealthiest sylvan in the world, a country that half the upstart world is imitate after. Its President is referred to as the "Leaderof the free world". Thousands of people keep an eye on to this country every year,learning round the country in hopes of fair citizens. William Hudson inhis book American Democracy in Peril talks about the seven biggestchallenges to this democratic nation.Individualism can be seen as a gift or a curse, expecting on the context inwhich it occurs. Because modern society finds it important that people thinkindependently, decide autonomously and commence personalised initiatives, theconcept of personal identity has acquired a positive connotation. However, several(prenominal)ism is also linked with the tendency to withdraw from social lifeand turn in towards oneself. Alexis de Tocqueville expound individualismas the cool and depended attitude which drives pe ople to withdraw into asmall, enclosed world consisting of their family and a few select friends,leaving the dwell of society to its own devices.The most obvious problem stemming from the process of individualism is of asocio-economic nature and concerns the problem of solidarity. If the linkbetween the community and the individual becomes less strong, to what utmostwill an individual experience social problems, in which he or she is notimmediately implicated, as his or her problems? To what extent are people inan individualistic society prepared to consider the problems of others astheir own? This is a crucial question for society since it places theauthenticity of many social institutions and political structures in question.Whoever accepts that individualism is a detail will consider political life tobe an incessant light touch of interests on the part of people who are only in itfor the sake of personal power or an increase in personal fortune. piecethey may be fine, respo nsible people in private life, in their attitude togovernment they are like infants, interested only in themselves and whatthey consume, howling for more, and not concerned at all about the religionof using government as a middleman to forcibly take what they desire fromtheir fellow-citizens. Whereas those people who reject individualism andaccept that the point of an choice is to choose representatives whom thevo... ... Congress, with the States, can amend theConstitution. Individualism breeds fragmentation and brings aboutdisconnectivity and this is in complete contradiction with the connectedgovernmental system in the United States where the governmental divisionsare always checking each other.On one hand, body politics project is unrealizable, because it is contradictory tonature. On the other, it is impossible to stop short of this commonwealth andgo indorse to aristocracy. This is because democratic equality also conforms tonature. It follows that we can only conduce d emocracy we cannot stop shortof democracy, because it fulfils nature. We cannot attain the end of thismovement, for it would mean subjecting nature tout ensemble and dehumanizingman. Escaping democracy is not an option. We can never possibly makedemocracy completely "real", and we must not try. We can and must moderatedemocracy, limit it, sober down its hostility to nature, all the whilebenefiting from its amity to nature. To moderate democracy so as itconforms with human nature, to limit it as yet as it is contrary to it,such is the sovereign art on which depend the prosperity and morality of ademocracy.