I chose to focus on Tocqueville's view of Individualism
because it is something that affects everyone in our society. Individualism
refers to separating yourself from your surroundings to reflect on yourself. I
believe the way our society is changing to be more individualized puts a lot
more emphasis on each individual to earn their way. I like the idea of putting
more emphasis on individuals to earn their way, however I think by doing this
the same minority groups will be put at a disadvantage and oppressed. He
believed in aristocratic behavior because it causes more other oriented
behavior and less self-interested behavior than a democratic society. I
strongly agree with this. In our democratic society we are so caught up in our
own lives that we often fail to care about others and how our actions will be
affecting them. Being an individual focuses on yourself and not the whole
society. Individualism is culturally learned which makes sense because
Americans value achieving and getting things on their own.
We all want to have
more money, bigger houses, better cars, etc. I think the term individuals
really display the greed we all contain in having more than we really need.
That is why individualism and materialism go hand in hand and that is the area
of individualism that really interests me. It’s very important to want to work
for the things we have, but we should not put more emphasis on the goods we're
obtaining than the work we're doing. I believe materialism is a vicious cycle;
we really are only trying to get money to buy more things just to keep up with
other people or to flaunt what we have. Tocqueville is highly critical of
materialism and I think this is largely due to Americans valuing materials more
than people. Our society is gearing more and more towards a society full of
individuals and it’s scary to think about how many and wrapped up in their own
lives and not caring about the common good of all of society. people will
continue to be left behind because of the lack of care we have for the others
around us. Tocqueville only really looked at the negative aspects of
individuals which I do agree with, but it is also nice to have a society that cherishes
individual accomplishments and rewards people for the hard work and success. Tocqueville’s
negative aspects he presented about individualism are still very relevant today
because we have people that are very focused on materialism
and wrapped up in their own lives and not caring about the
common good of all of society. I chose to use this chart as supporting material because it shows that Americans really do believe that the individuals are in control of the success in their life, while many other large countries think that success is determined by outside forces.
I also decided to focus on Tocqueville's view of Individualism, and I do agree a lot with his findings and yours, however I still do not see how it is democracy that causes individualism. I think that Tocqueville's conclusion that it is democracy at the root is more of a conclusion based on his place in history then the actual politics of democracy. Individualism did rise as people left the countryside to find work. But the driving factor in this is industrialization, and with industrialization also comes the two class system as corporations get more powerful and exercise more control over personal freedoms. I think that because industrialization provides a large continuous supply of low quality, cheep goods, it is in need of an ever growing base on consumers. To create this base, personal freedoms are striped to make an obedient working/consuming class whose only ways of expressing individuality and the value of their work and success is to buy things. Taking care of yourself and your family is then made into the most important thing in your life as you loss your feeling of place in society as you are now part of an assembly line economy and no longer get satisfaction out of making things and your job. Instead you feel like a cog in a machine rater then a part of a community. However, I thinks democracy's ability to make people form civil organizations, like unions and clubs to say voting blocks could be used to counter individualism. I still do not see how democracy causes individualism. I see a interesting correlation, but I fail to find causation.
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