Overcoming the cult of individualism

In 1984, David Engel wrote that individualism, as a cultural phenomenon, takes on two distinct forms. One of the forms, which Engel called "rights-oriented," aligns with the legal notion that individuals possess certain rights for which the justice system offers redress upon those rights being violated. Engel explained that the other type, which I am calling "autonomy-oriented," holds the opposite view: 

[A]n individualism emphasizing self-sufficiency and personal responsibility rather than rights is consistent with the expectation that people should ordinarily provide their own protection against injuries and should personally absorb the consequences of harms they fail to ward off.

Engel argued that the residents of rural Sander County, Illinois embodied that type of autonomy-oriented individualism, which contributed to a social climate that inhibited residents from ever bringing suit after experiencing personal injury. 

Thirty years later, Engel's theory appears in the modern context in the documentary, For the Love of Rutland. In the film, the town of Rutland, Vermont clashed over the Mayor's plan to host Syrian refugees. However, the film mainly focuses on the life of Stacie Griffin, a Rutland resident living in poverty and battling addiction. 

Within the first few moments of the film, Griffin invites the camera into her home and puts her life on full display. At one point, someone off-camera protests that they don't want the crew to see their room, but Griffin quickly rebuts them saying it's real. She does not care to hide any part of her life from the camera, because she wholly accepts the consequences of her past decisions. The audience quickly learns that she also feels that the incoming Syrian refugees should have been held to the same standard, too.

Initially, Griffin was opposed to the refugees coming to Rutland. She witnesses the communal effort to accommodate them and she resents them for it, because neither the community nor the state was helping her with her problems. At that time, Griffin was trying to keep her son in school, find her husband a job, keep her family from being evicted, and so forth. The heightened sense of autonomy-oriented individualism that Griffin held, she held to a fault. It became suffocating as she believed her problems were her own, but they had become insurmountable. Like the residents of Sander County, Griffin could not see herself getting help and seemed intent on making sure the refugees did not receive any, either.

Unlike in Engel's paper, however, Griffin's story offered a solution. Griffin's life began to improve as soon as she began to organize in her community. Although, the film is unclear as to why Griffin started reaching out to community groups--presumably, she might have hit rock-bottom or maybe the filmmakers encouraged her to talk to people actively organizing around the refugees--but she quickly found a new purpose in leading an effort to improve her neighborhood. 

Before linking up with the community groups, Griffin was sinking under the crushing weight of her bills and the other problems previously discussed. She had attended a meeting about the opioid crisis, but felt angry and invisible as politicians and police applauded themselves for their impressive statistical data. But once she began organizing in her community, specifically to help with a youth program, she clearly felt heard and included as part of something bigger than herself and her problems. She also learned how to reach out to other organizers to ask for help, instead of holding onto her problems as her burden alone. 

In the documentary, the Alderman who helps Griffin from not being evicted makes two interesting points in that regard. First, she did not understand why Griffin did not ask for help sooner, as her problem was relatively simple. An eviction might be new for a tenant, but it is not a new phenomenon. An experienced organizer has helped others similarly situated to Griffin, and the Alderman said that her organization could have prevented her eviction in a day.

Second, that it was tragic that people like Griffin have to reach the point of desperation before help is provided. Griffin could have never dug herself out of all the problems piling up in her life, but it was clear that she felt they were her problems, nonetheless. That was the true consequence of her holding onto the idea that personal problems were strictly personal, and that it was selfish to involve the community. For Griffin, relief only came when she abandoned that idea of autonomy-oriented individualism, and found help through helping others.