American Selfishness or Individualism

A few weeks ago, I agreed to stand in for a professor who had to miss his class, though refused to cancel, for personal reasons.  The class is American Culture with 17 Chinese business people visiting for 3 months.  The two hour class was mostly occupied by asking personal questions and photographing the visiting lecturer.  After interrogating me of my whereabouts the last 30 years, they asked a rather confounding question which I found more profound to summarize within an hour.

Question:  "After living in 5 different countries in 3 different continents, how would you describe what it is to be 'American'?"

Answer:  "To be American is to be an individual, one who emphasizes oneself over a family, a company, or a group."

Yes, I gave a grossly simplistic answer to a loaded question.

A few weeks afterwards, I was sitting down over a cup of coffee with a very good friend at Coffee Bean.  He is  a very philosophical man, with very profound ideas.  We talked about the differences between America and Europe, whilst figuring the difficulties my husband might have to hurdle in moving across the Atlantic.  I realized then how I've let myself down in answering the question above the way I did, though not completely wrong, but was rather misleading.  My friend and I defined the characteristics to be said as particularly American:

1.  I don't care as long as it doesn't affect me.

2.  Think what you wish so long as you don't shove it at my throat.

3.  As long as it makes me/you happy, why not do it?

The above statements do not convey individualism, but selfishness.  There's a big difference between being selfish and being an individualistic.  Let's face it, we are definitely not an individualistic culture.  Last I checked everyone is too busy trying to look like someone else (See previous post on Graffiti Art).

Yes, people, we are incredibly selfish culture.  I mean who says those things but selfish people?  The truth is, one's action is never an isolated thing.  Cause and effect.  What ever one does, it has an effect, not just on oneself, but on those surrounding the action.   

Let's take a married man who decides to get involved with a lot younger and hotter woman.  As long as he's happy, why not?  Well, what about his wife?  And his children?  And the woman?  All of them, the wife, the children, the woman, and probably the extended family and friends of the couple, are directly affected by this one, miniscule idiotic action.  Cause and effect - law of nature.

A drank person decides to drive back home after a few drinks.  Hey, he/she can do whatever he/she wants as long as it doesn't affect me, right?  Wrong.  The idiot will not only kill him/herself, but everyone else on the road, including me and you.  Now that's incredibly selfish.

The question is, who is more selfish, the offender or the one who stood around and did nothing to stop the offense.