The Production of American Individualism

Part Two of "The Desire For Community" series

As is true of many of the stories that we tell ourselves, the narrative creates the reality in which that story makes sense and becomes truth. For example, my father likes to tell a story about me, walking down the wooden staircase of my childhood home, stopping midway on a little landing there and declaring that "Nadie Sabe Como Es Mas Mejor," which translates to "Nobody Knows What Is Best." It is a story that helped to explain, after the fact, how I went on to become a philosopher, a rather unusual outcome for a Dominican girl. According to this story, I was always already a philosopher.

Interrogating my own investment in an American ideal of individualism, I have come to realize that the story of US-American individualism is just this kind of narrative. The story goes something like this:

The colonial settlers came to America in search of religious freedom, economic independence, and personal liberty. Personal liberty included the right to self-determination and self-governance, an…