[DanaC]

I'm an individualist....I'm also a collectivist. Certain aspects of life foster individualism and, in my opinion that can be a good thing. Some aspects of life benefit from, and therefore foster, a collectivist approach. 'Rugged individualism' is nice and catchy but overly simplistic in the answers it provides to life's questions. We cannot all be expert at everything, unless the range of things that one can be expert in, and the extent of expertise that's possible, is awfully small. We can all gain expertise in general herbcraft....but we cannot all be experts in brain surgery. Even in the most individualist societies (such as frontier America) not all knowledge is held by everyone: indeed, such universality of knowledge would require far more in the way of collectivism than it would in the way of individualism.

In an effort to understand where we are now it might help to start back in time and move forward. In frontier days each person was very much an individual. Rugged individualism was a popular expression. Each man and woman was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Each husband and wife was a team that together could and had to do everything that was needed.

A jack-of-all-[subsistence]trades and a master of none. Those husband and wife teams would no doubt have found it comforting to know that there was a trained doctor nearby should they fall ill with something that cannot be treated with local herbs. I would imagine very few of them were self-sufficient to the point that they never had to engage in purchasing goods or services.

I think that we, women and men, have become chess pieces. We have become objects to be manipulated by the market and the corporation.

So it has always been and so it will always be. The chess players vary, but ordinary people have ever been at the mercy of those who shape the laws and economy in which they live. Look at the origins of your ruggedly individual colonists and you will see many for whom their presence in the New World was a consequence of the chess games of mighty men. At every point in America's history there have been chess players and chess pieces, just as there have been in my country's history. All that differs is the degree to which people are vulnerable to such games: the degree to which their individuality protects them.

Do you feel like a cipher in our culture?

No. I feel like an individual, an individual whose relationship to the culture she lives in is uniquely hers. I feel valued in my individuality; but more importantly, I feel valued as a part of the collective whole. It is my place within that collective whole which means that my individuality is respected, valued and protected.