Quote:
Originally posted by roachboy
... if people understand themselves as isolated individuals only, then, sadly, what you say in the last lines of your post, maybe well turn out to be true---but it is not inevitable.
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This is correct. Collective action goes against the grain in a society whose self-image is based upon a "wild west" ideal of rugged individualism. That image may have been valid when the US was a sparsely populated nation with vast frontiers where one could run away from civilization and be a nation unto oneself. In the modern world, everything is more intricately interrelated, and there is nowhere left to escape that essential fact. No matter where you go or what you do, government is there to be reckoned with, and that reckoning requires strength in numbers.