I love cowboy movies.  Especially old westerns featuring John Wayne, an icon of American history and character.

John Wayne’s characters always embodied American rugged individualism, a term coined by President Herbert Hoover.  Take The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance where Wayne’s character says, “Out here a man settles his own problems.”

There was no government or court of law in the wild west where American pioneers conquered wilderness and new frontiers.  It was every man for himself.  The rugged individualism of the American spirit proved resilient and long-lasting in years to come as America rose to prominence on the international scene, particularly in World War II.

Back in the good ole’ days, “Wayne’s rugged individualism challenged the idea of collectivism” that was so prevalent in communist countries like Russia (Daily Signal).

Storm Clouds Gather To Cover Rugged Individualism

And yet freedom sure ain’t free, and neither is rugged individualism.  America has become increasingly collectivist, most clearly seen in the way its citizens have handled the COVID-19 epidemic.  Few people question closing churches and businesses in the name of “safety”.  Why is this?

Because it is seen as selfish.  Selfish to endanger others by holding church services or keeping the doors of your small business open.

Rugged individualism is now called “a ruthless individualism” that has undermined America’s sense of “common purpose and concern for the common good [and] bodes ill for a people claiming to be a democracy” (Santa Clara University).

One author put it more clearly regarding mask mandates and conservatives’ reluctance to bow the knee and “care” for others.  “What the coronavirus has revealed is the power of America’s cult of selfishness.  And this cult is killing us” (The New York Times, July 2020).

(RELATED: Taking Responsibility For Problems And Working To Fix Them)

Hold Up!  Individualism Is Under Attack

But wait a second.  America’s rugged individualism has been under steady attack for quite some time.

1. Breaking Down the Family

In 1996, Hilary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, urging America to implement what other countries were doing as they rolled out government education.

2. Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter website’s “About” page originally stated a goal to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another.”  The statement was removed in September 2020.

It is clear the nuclear family is taking heavy artillery fire from progressive culture, and if the family is destroyed, rugged individualism crumbles.

3. Woke Colleges

Not only that, but when college students can find “safe spaces”, and universities police “ ‘trigger words’ and ‘microaggressions,’” this continues to break down the individual and replaces it with a collectivist society (Hoover Institution).

4. Government Welfare

We can also add welfare to the list of threats to individuality.  Milton Friedman worried that the American welfare state threatened individualism, stating “the melting pot has increasingly been replaced by multiculturalism, and rugged individualism by a welfare state.”

The list goes on as rugged individualism fights for survival.

Herbert Hoover championed rugged individualism when he said, “You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts” (Principles and Ideals of the United States Government, October 1928).

Death By Rugged Individualism

To put the final nail in the coffin of rugged individualism, the Pantsuit Politics podcast suggested an inscription on America’ tombstone: “Death by rugged individualism,” saying rugged individualism played a part in America’s “unwillingness to examine […its] own history” and care for others (Why We’re Voting For Joe Biden, October 2020).

Individualism Vs. Collectivism

Nowhere is collectivism more clearly seen than in socialist and communist nations where individual rights of private property, education, religion, and health care are controlled and distributed by the government.

In 1991, Pope John Paul II made a profound point about individualism versus collectivism.  “Socialism […] maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice [… and] the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears…”

The pope continued to say, “From this mistaken conception of the person there arise[s] an opposition to private property” (Encyclical Centesimus Annus, May 1991).

Let’s Compare Apples to Apples, Shall We?

Individualism (a quality of capitalism) and collectivism (a quality of communism) aren’t really apples to apples in comparison, but let’s give it a shot.

Under individualist and capitalist societies, people flourish in both material possessions and intellectually.

Check out the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, and you’ll see what I mean.  Socialist countries have the lowest per capita income, with the lowest being Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out Isabel Brown’s Freedom Seeds episode below!

Not to mention, in communist countries, millions of people are killed or die of starvation and famine.   Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s regime saw 65 million Chinese citizens die, and the Soviet Union tragically caused the death of 61 million people.

In capitalist countries people thrive and families can grow.  Individuals make their own decisions about church, education, health care, and even government.

It is a known fact that Marxism (the foundation for communism) targets “the family, religion, and civil society – institutional obstacles to the imposition of the omnipotent state.”

By erasing these three components of society, communists and Marxists have demolished the individual.

No individual families.  No individual religions.  No individual compartments of society (institutions, organizations, law practice, etc.).

The Left must destroy America’s rugged individualism in order to rise to power.  If America maintains its traditional free-thinking, “don’t tread on me” ideals, it is hard to suppress the people’s will.  But if we cave to the Left’s demands, we allow them to erode our rights until we wake up to the realization that we don’t have rights.

What You Can Do

Hang on to your individualism.  Feel free to hold different views than other people.  Post different things than your friends do.  Don’t self censor.

Rugged individualism is the American way of life.  It’s how we thrive.  It’s how we have become a world superpower.  Our Founding Fathers thought outside the box, and we made headway where other nations couldn’t.

As Herbert Hoover said, “[…] centralization of government […] would have meant the undermining of the individual initiative and enterprise through which our people have grown to unparalleled greatness” (Principles and Ideals of the United States Government, October 1928).

Nearly 100 years later, the question hasn’t changed.  The horizon might be grim, but the fight is the same.  Will we let communist ideologies steal the individuality of the American Way, or will we stand for our rights?

It is not selfish to stand for the individuality and God-given rights of equality and justice for mankind.