The Myth Of Individualism Analysis

Journal Entry Three
In the recent weeks, I have noticed a trend in our cultural beliefs regarding groups outside of our own. As a nation, while the United States has a strongly individualistic nature from a personal perspective, there is also a strong collectivist belief regarding everyone outside of themselves and their groups. Rather than believing that each member of an external group is responsible for their decisions alone (myth of individualism), separating them from a collective (one bad apple), the consensus is generally geared opposite. For example, the belief that all immigrants want to steal American jobs, when one is not an immigrant, or that feminists are actually misandrists, when one is not a feminist. What I believe we have

in America, then, is not a Myth of Individualism, but of Internal Individualism, alongside a Myth of External Collectivism. While many important issues today come from our individualistic beliefs, I believe our collectivist beliefs in others are of key interest for the upcoming presidential election.
It was late at night when I came up with the idea. I was working on the final changes to my Off the Grid essay, but while trying to concentrate, my mind could not get away from a dream I had a few nights before. In the dream, I was a reporter at a rally for Donald Trump. On my repertoire were questions I needed to ask him. First, “If the Muslim ID system you put in place did not decrease the number of terrorist plots in the United States, would you consider deportation?” and second, “If deportation failed to get rid of them, would you be willing to use military force?” My subconscious provided derivative answers, involving “throwing them across the border” and doing whatever was necessary to “make America great again.” Although a dream filled with recycled themes of Trump’s speeches, as well as my own political debates, and hardly anything triggering, it left me with a feeling of inexplicable fear and concern. After spending a few minutes of thought, I realized my fears were because the rhetoric was something I had come across before, that of Adolf Hitler in reference to the Jews.
I do not suggest that Trump plans incite an Islamic genocide, but that his fascist ideology regarding Muslims, immigrants, and the disabled as well as his position places him in a situation with the possibility of inciting genocidal acts. A shocking number of people in the United States share his views. If Trump is elected into office, he has the executive power to enact the policies he wants to put into place (likely with little significant backlash from Congress.) Part of this is due to a collective fear of terrorism since September 11, but part of it is also do to this External Collectivist ideology. In the U.S., the typical sequence of judgement goes as follows: Since terrorists attacked the U.S. under Islam, Islam must be an anti-democratic, hateful, and violent religion, and therefore those who practice it must be terrorists or embody these traits. Instead of being a few “bad apples” as it may have been for a Christian terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan or Christian Identity Movement for example (1), these terrorists are made out to be equal to the others in their “barrel”.
In most cases, this is not a problem.

Viewing others’ groups as collective makes people feel more connected to their own group, just as in the book The Myth of Individualism by Peter Callero when the scout troops formed solidarity with one another. However, this “us” and “them” mentality also creates a volatile animosity. In a camp setting, the boy scouts began to fight with one another outside of designated games. In a world setting, we achieve what we have in the United States today between the Anglo-Saxon/Christian majorities versus the minority groups of Islamics. Alternatively, we achieve similar polarity between Christian Germans and Jewish Germans before Hitler’s rise to power, and start America on the path to genocide on its

soil.
The idea may seem radical and extreme, but of the Eight Stages of Genocide defined by Gregory H. Stanton (2), American society is already at Stage 3, Dehumanization. This stage acts as the turning point from a relatively normal society towards violence. We as a nation have already taken away civil liberties from the Muslim community. Privacy is no longer an option if you are a Muslim in the United States. The government is allowed to search through personal data and documents, travel ability is restricted, and placement on a watch list is likely, even for the most distant relatives of a suspected terrorist. These are violation of our “unalienable rights” that we as humans were, “endowed by our creator”. Therefore, to take these rights away from a specific group of individuals is to passively regard them as ‘less than human’.
If Trump were elected, his external-collectivist ideology coupled with fascist extremism, would have him enact the Identification System for Muslims in the United States, bring back more ‘enhanced’ methods of torture, and ban entrance of Muslims from entering the nation. This action would bring America from a Stage 3 to a Stage 4 (Organization; acts of genocide (including forced deportation) are no longer individual, but orchestrated by a group or government body). If my nightmare were to become reality, and deportation was not enough to provide a satisfactory ‘national security’, we would likely reach Stage 5 (Polarization) , or even 6 (Preparation).
Of course, this is all only speculation based on what has occurred with similar situations in the past.

Reading the news mere moments ago, people are realizing Trump’s viewpoints are too fascist even for the furthest right-wing GOP member, denouncing his actions and beliefs. However, the very possibility of genocide on U.S. soil does bring up a different side to the Myth of Individualism. Perhaps it is not individualism itself that is the issue, but that it is not traded off through viewing ourselves as a collective as well. If everyone in the world saw themselves as both individuals and affected within their environments. As well as, viewed everyone else in a similar light, then perhaps a greater interconnectivity and understanding could be reached. Perhaps it is following the old saying, ‘put yourself in someone else’s shoes’ that is required to act as a prevention of sorts. I will say, however, that history has already placed her bets against us. It is up to us as a people to decide if she will

win.