All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College

53
Education and Individualism:
Some Notes, Some Questions
Carla R. Payne, Professor Emerita of Graduate Studies, Union Institute and University, and
Adjunct Faculty, Community College of Vermont
1. I have the privilege of teaching philosophy,
which gives me a glimpse into what students
are thinking. Over the years, I have noticed
that the ethical relativism that is endemic
among undergraduates is beginning to
have an analogy in their attitude toward
ontology. Not only do many of my students
insist that what is good and right is relative
to the individual, but also that what is real is
real only in relation to the individual person.
This goes beyond even Jamesian pluralism
to what amounts to an insistence on the
democracy of existence itself. Whatever the
logical merits of such a position, it does not
seem to result from reflection on the nature
of things, but rather from a sense that any
other position would not be fair, i.e., that
a monolithic reality would infringe on
individual rights. This may be the ultimate
ought-is argument: x should not be the
case, and therefore x is not the case. But I
am concerned here less with the soundness
of this train of thought than with the way
it mirrors the assumptions in our present
political environment.
2. Some examples to consider:
• Headline: Rift in Arizona as Latino
Class is Found Illegal. A high school
class in Latino literature is found to be
in violation of Arizona legislation (HB
2281, May 10, 2010), which stipulates
that “A school district or charter school in
this state shall not include in its program
of instruction any courses or classes that
include any of the following: … Advocate
ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment
of pupils as individuals” (Lacey, 2011).
• After the shootings in Tucson, Sarah
Palin is quoted as saying that “. . . acts
like the shootings in Arizona ‘begin and
end with the criminals who commit
them, not collectively with all the citizens
of a state.’” “Ms. Palin quoted former
President Ronald Reagan as saying that
society should not be blamed for the acts
of an individual. She said, ‘It is time to
restore the American precept that each
individual is accountable for his actions’”
(Shear, 2011).
The political implications and motivations
of the Arizona legislation and of
pronouncements similar to Palin’s have been
widely canvassed, but the extent to which
they reflect a major theme in American
culture, rooted perhaps even more deeply
than chauvinism, is not being given equal
attention. Individualism is the mantra, and
the virtues of individualism are proclaimed
and assumed, but rarely examined for their
implications. Are we, after all, biological
atoms, each thrown into the world to
compete with every other, owing nothing
of ourselves to any others and therefore
without essential ties beyond ourselves
Aristotle asserted that we can’t even be
human outside human society, and there
are centuries of research demonstrating the
importance of the social environment on our
physical, physiological and psychological
development. But radical individualism
occurs and recurs as a leading motif, and
indeed as an article of faith, throughout
American history. Our most recent versions
of libertarianism trumpet it: because any
government that is democratic is necessarily
a collective enterprise of the governed, even
such a government must infringe on the
absolute autonomy of the individual person.
The contemporary insistence on the virtues
of choice and on the total responsibility
of each person for his/her own fate, which
we see shaping policy from health care to
financial regulation, is another variation on
this same theme.
3. An educational system is bound to reflect
the underlying assumptions of the society
that it serves. But we must recognize that
to the extent that education is implemented
through social organization, there is a fatal
inconsistency in insisting that certain values
can be inculcated and at the same time
that what we experience doesn’t count in
making us who we are. Does it make sense
to argue that family values (or any values)
need to be cherished and perpetuated, and
simultaneously that we are all radically and
solely responsible for who we are and what
we do Or does this argument apply only
to criminals, while those of us who turn
out to be “good citizens” owe our virtue
to parental teaching, proper schooling,
religious indoctrination or divine grace
4. It is interesting to realize that in 1930,
at the beginning of the Great Depression,
John Dewey drew a distinction between
an older individualism and a newer one,
regarding individualism as a “mental and
moral structure,” itself dynamic, evolving
and changing “with every great change in
social constitution” (Dewey, 1962). The
older individualism he saw as rooted in
feudalism, and as later transformed by
the industrial revolution. It was defined
by economic self-interest, at a time when
such an understanding of individualism
represented resistance to prevailing legal
and political repression. But “emergent
individualism,” according to Dewey,
consonant with the forces of the present
time, is impeded by our “opposing the
socially corporate to the individual” (1962).
Of course the terms of that opposition are
now themselves transformed by the passage
from the machine-dominated industry of
his era to the digital technology of ours, but
Dewey’s rejection of personal or individual
gain as the sole and permanent driver of
progress is still highly relevant, as is his
repudiation of the idea that the ties that
bind us together in community “are merely
external, and do not react into mentality
and character, producing the framework
of personal disposition” (Dewey, 1962).
It is the contradiction of this very insight
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011