The Importance Of Individualism In The Declaration Of Independence

A noted philosopher Ayn Rand said, “An individualist is a man who says, I will not run anyone’s life- nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone- nor sacrifice anyone to myself.” Rand has defined individualism in a way where every man, is an independent sovereign entity who has certain inalienable rights to his own life. A moral ideal Americans have embraced since the founding of the Declaration of Independence has been to create a government that protects individual liberties and stresses the importance of self-government. The America at the time our nation was beginning to build itself, expressed individualism through the fundamental liberties and

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” When Jefferson was creating this document in 1776, the point he was trying to come across was intended to mean all men are created equal in their rights and liberties. The American ideal in the declaration of independence was so that every individual in the United States could pursue their own happiness and goals, in respect to laws in the Constitution. It was intended to overthrow the government, ran by King George who was establishing pure tyranny over the states. Little did he know that from having this individualism, it would come to be an important value and aspect of our everyday lives as Americans. Today, it means much more than how we carry our rights, but more of a personalized social distinction. At the time where the concept was first introduced, individualism as we see it today was very minimal because there were only two social groups. These were the Europeans and the Americans who occupied the territory, and they governed themselves on different principles coming from a different type of aristocracy. The only thing they had in common was the language, which as mentioned in Alexis De Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” that “the tie of language, is perhaps the strongest and most durable that can unite mankind.” Today, America is diverse and has

The transformation of the social value of Individualism has evolved in a sense of how we express one’s unique nature and not just in politics. James Davison Hunter’s “The Enduring Culture War” includes some of these theories. He includes that faith and religious community had been largely settled and were thus no longer politically important. And that the diversity that mattered today was now a diversity of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Today the American can be homosexual or heterosexual, black or white, wealthy or middle class, female or male and there can still be a conflict of these different cultures. “Conflicts between Americans have been visible for a long time, but most of us are just beginning to perceive the conflicts within us individually.” (People of Paradox; Kammen) There is a division in ideas between Americans, those who are traditionalists and those who are modernists. The traditionalists have one moral vision that the achievements and traditions practiced in the past should stay as the guide to the present. We can see this in the continuous debate about the legal rights of LGBT. Before the US supreme court ruled that same-sex marriage become a legal right across the United States on June 26th, 2015, there were still Americans against the ruling and these were traditionalists. Some Catholics and Christians opposed the