Citizenship:
Bridging Individualism and Community
to Sustain our Democracy
by Nick Licata
The U.S. stands out since its creation as championing the rights of all individuals, as proclaimed in the Declaration that Jefferson wrote for the new nation. Always clever, Jefferson substituted “pursuit of happiness” for “possessing property” in order to cast a wider net.
Although initially those who did not own enough property, or were women or Jews, were deprived of the vote by state governments. Enslaved blacks, of course, were not even considered citizens — they were someone else’s property.
Still, America’s revolution, which championed individual freedoms, can be seen as the spark in the U.S. for abolishing slavery and guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Today, defending individual freedom has been used to defend the “right not to wear a mask,” ignoring the fact that not wearing a mask may result in your fellow citizens being infected with the coronavirus. Others claim the right to possess an assault rifle, which is solely designed to kill people.
For some citizens, concern for the welfare of the larger community is too abstract a notion to compensate for losing such personal freedoms. That is the tension between an individual’s freedom and the community’s welfare.
Progressive-Democrat Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, in her book Use the Power You Have, coined the derisive term “individual supremacy.” It describes an attitude that “rejects compassion in favor of fear of others,” and pits “individual needs versus what is best for the whole communities”. She believes such a perspective “stops us from thinking about the ways in which we are linked” and the responsibility we have to each other to tackle big issues such as climate change.
Trump-Conservative Sean Hannity, Fox News’ lead political commentator, attacks leftists in his book Live Free or Die, for “decreeing what kind of straws you can drink from, what kind of lightbulbs you can use, and what kind of power your home can use.” He does not see these individual acts contributing to climate change and causing any harm to the larger community. Such regulations that limit our behavior are unacceptable to him and others.
But Hannity does favor promoting our nation being built upon a community of Christians that require individuals to adopt their values. He fondly quotes the book The Light and the Glory: 1492-1793 (God's Plan for America) in describing how our nation’s founders were “chosen by God for a specific purpose: … rediscovering God’s plan to join them together by His Spirit in the common cause of advancing His Kingdom,” and to “operate not as lone individualists, but in covenanted groups.”