Individual versus Social Responsibility
Republican Presidential
candidate Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassment this election year when asked
about the cause of the American Civil War.
It was, she replied, the result of the conflict between two views of how
one should live in society. On one hand,
the South celebrated the freedom of the individual, while the North celebrated
a society in which government ensured the same rights—equal rights—for all
citizens. Almost immediately, there was
a backlash, since most people felt that the Civil War was about slavery and how
it denied freedom and full participation in society to an entire race of
people.
One could argue, of course, that slavery—or, more precisely, the right of individual people of one race to buy and hold others as slaves—was a major implication of a social structure defined by the rights of individuals without also referencing the individual’s responsibility to their society and the right of all individuals to the same opportunities. Ultimately, this frames the questions that all democracies must address and then continue to consider as every new generation faces fresh challenges.
The question of how to balance the individual’s rights with the individual’s responsibility to the community is not a new concern. In his history of America during the Presidencies of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Adams (John Quincy’s grandson) recalled a controversy over whether or not citizens should fund the development of a highway across Rhode Island. Opponents argued for a toll road, saying that they should not be required to pay the cost of people transporting goods from one place to another (Adams, p. 46). Adams quotes Timothy Dwight, President of Yale from 1795 to 1817, on the Rhode Island state legislature’s refusal to fund the completion of an unfinished turnpike designed to cross the state:
“The
principal reason for the refusal, as alleged by one of the members, it is said,
was the following: that turnpikes and the establishment of religious worship
had their origin in Great Britain, the government of which was a monarchy and
the inhabitants slaves; that the people of Massachusetts and Connecticut were
obliged by law to support ministers and pay the fare of turnpikes, and were
therefore slaves also; that if they chose to be slaves they undoubtedly had a
right to their choice, but that free-born Rhode Islanders ought never to submit
to be priest-ridden, nor to pay for the privilege of travelling on the highway.
This demonstrative reasoning prevailed, and the road continued in the state
which I have mentioned until the year 1805. It was then completed, and
free-born Rhode Islanders bowed their necks to the slavery of travelling on a
good road” (ibid.).
And so it has gone for the two centuries that followed. We continue to struggle to find a happy middle ground between the desire for individual freedom, on one hand, and the need for individuals to take responsibility for their communities on the other. Historically, one result of this way of living is that the control of community falls to a tiny minority. In the olden days, these were the aristocrats, kings and dictators. The challenge for today, when many citizens have lost their sense of citizenship, is to keep our culture as a community of individuals. As some have said, “It takes a village.” Call it democracy.
