Rugged Individualism rears its ugly head

I haven't given Ronald Reagan much thought in a while.

Okay, that's not true; this morning I cringed when the metrorail driver alerted us to a transfer point for trains to "Reagan National Airport". But I try not to think about him much.

I've never been a big fan of 'rugged individualism'. As a trade unionist, I know first-hand the power of working together over going it alone. But it's always good to have bad examples to point to, especially when talking to those for whom the 1980's are ancient history.

Adolph Reed's article When Government Shrugs: Lessons of Katrina gives the best (worst) example I've seen in a while. I'll quote a paragraph or two, but you should read the whole article:

Always ready to exoticize, even when on their best behavior, the news media pulled out their one-size-fits-all cultural exceptionalism. People down there are rooted in their ways, we were told. They have a primordial commitment to place that anchors them to an extent the rest of us can’t understand...

From that twisted perspective it appears almost disrespectful to consider them to be suffering; they march to the beat of a different drummer and make different choices from the rest of us. The implication is that they accept the consequences of those choices and that it would be condescending to believe otherwise. This is, of course, only a free-market, happy-face expression of victim-blaming.