Decline of the Individual - Post

THE DECLINE OF THE INDIVIDUAL

By Vice Admiral H. G. Rickover

In recent years a sense of uneasiness has crept upon the American people. We have lost some of our exuberance, some of our faith in ourselves. Many of us are disturbed by the loss of good things which we cherish as peculiarly American and by the intrusion of distasteful things we never expected would invade our way of life. These changes have been many and various, but they all have a common root: They stem from factors which have conspired to diminish the freedom and dignity of the individual.

These human values are essential in a democracy; anything that threatens them makes our whole society a little less free, our nation a little less strong. The basic tenet of democracy is respect for the equal moral worth of all human beings and the equal freedom of all men to shape their lives as they see fit, provided only that they harm no one and violate no law. Only the self-determining, independent citizen can make a success of self-government.

Yet these same values can be neither created nor preserved without continuous effort, and that effort must come from the people—or rather from the individual. Successful self-government will not produce a good society unless enough citizens feel an identification with the fate of the nation. Repeating patriotic clichés is not enough.

Even were it conceivable that we might prefer things to freedom—perhaps self-indulgence or social irresponsibility or political apathy—the peril in which our country finds itself today forbids such folly. In its struggle with Communism, democracy cannot afford to forgo a single one of the advantages inherent in a free society: the mutual trust that flourishes in freedom, the release of human initiative and energy, the pragmatism and tolerance that prevent enslavement to dogmatic ideology—these are what give democracy flexibility and strength.

Our nation was launched with a system of government containing numerous safeguards to protect individual liberties. Careful reading of the Declaration of Independence shows that our society pivots on the free citizen. Observe the order of precedence: First there is the statement that all men are born equally endowed with "unalienable rights," and some of these are listed; then the Declaration notes that governments "are instituted among men" to "secure" these rights, and finally it is stated that government derives its "just powers" from the governed. Clearly the founding fathers wanted to make certain that Americans never would be ruled by anyone who had not received their express mandate.

Over the years, however, and especially since the coming of the industrial and later the scientific revolution, radical changes have occurred in our way of life, some of them inimical to the free individual in whom our society is grounded.

The first major threat to individual freedom lies in the replacement of what sociologists call the Protestant ethic, which prevailed in this country until the turn of the century, by a new so-called Freudian ethic. Put in simple terms, the Protestant and Freudian ethics stand for two opposite concepts of man. The first sees him shaping his own destiny, being governed by standards he sets himself and by his own conscience, therefore responsible for his own acts. It is the spiritual foundation of democracy. The second sees man ruled by unconscious drives and external pressures, hence not really responsible for his acts. His life is shaped not by himself but by his socioeconomic environment; if he becomes a failure or a criminal, not he but society is to blame.

American egalitarianism reinforces this caricature of Freud's concepts. Mediocrity excuses itself as the normal and healthy state of mankind. The uncommon man who excels thus becomes a sort of unnatural freak. Conformity to the environment in which one happens to find oneself becomes the safe and approved aim. That this shrivels individual autonomy is a fact not always immediately perceived.

The process starts with the "progressive" school and the permissive home. Emphasis is placed on self-expression rather than on self-discipline; on group adjustment rather than on development of the individual's innate capacities; on gaining popularity with the "peer" group rather than on becoming an independent, self-determining adult human being. The educationists' avowed intent to use the school for leveling out human differences strikes me as an assault on the child's basic humanity. Unlike animals who are equipped only for the one kind of life proper to their species—peer group, if you like!—man is infinitely diverse in talents and interests. The higher the cultural level, the greater this diversity; passive adjustment to a group belongs to a more primitive age of man.

Group conditioning in the school makes itself felt in adult life. Increasingly, Americans seek comfort and security through belonging to a particular segment of society. People huddle together in communities populated exclusively by members of some one segment and pattern their personal behavior on group standards. What is particularly disturbing is the resentment that tends to be generated in these closed groups against anyone who thinks independently and who must therefore at times differ from approved "group thought."

All new ideas begin in a nonconforming mind that questions some tenet of the "conventional wisdom." All improvements originate in a critical mind that mistrusts the "image" projected by some powerful organism. The innovator of ideas and the social critic are essential to a free society; they are what make the society free.

In a democracy there is need for "critics by profession"—commentators, columnists, etc., whose "beat" is the whole of the social scene—but there is also need of "lay critics" who look upon discovery and publication of truth as part of their civic responsibility. The critic who makes himself an expert on some particular subject, so that he may offer the people information not otherwise available, ought surely to be able to count the people on his side. But, all too often, habits of conformity and mistrust of iconoclasts lead the public to take a neutral position, as if they were judging a proceeding in a court of law.

It is a sad comment on the decline of individualism in America that the critic has no friend at court. He is tagged "controversial," the worst that can happen to anyone in a conformist society.

The "controversial" tag makes him by definition a "flawed" personality, not group-adjusted, one-sided, ill-informed, frustrated and motivated by ill will. Epithets may therefore be thrown at him with impunity; he may be misquoted and misrepresented, and what he says may be contemptuously dismissed as requiring no refutation whatever.

A second major threat to individual freedom comes from the impact of technology. The utilization of science for practical purposes has such enormous potential for the good or evil of man and society that our attitude toward it requires careful rethinking. We have here a complex problem that calls for a higher order of intelligence than has so far been applied. Up to now we have left technological matters almost entirely to the management of practical men. I submit, however, that the practical approach to a new scientific discovery is short-range and private; it is concerned with ways to put a discovery to use in the most economical and efficient manner. The scholarly approach is long-range and public. It looks to the effects which the use of a new discovery will have on people in general, on the nation, perhaps on the world, and it considers the future as well as the present.

As an engineer I have a healthy respect for the categorical imperatives of nature, imperatives that are constantly being disregarded for the sake of short-range benefits. I feel strongly that technology must not be raised to the status of an end in itself, but must always remain a means to an end, the end being the welfare of human beings and of the nation as a whole. In determining whether a given technology conforms to this objective, we need the help of both practical and scholarly experts. But the final decision must rest with the American people as a whole.

It disturbs me that we allow ourselves to be pressured by purveyors of technology into permitting so-called technical progress to alter our lives without attempting to control this development—almost as if technology were an irrepressible force of nature to which we must meekly submit. If we but paused to reflect before acting, we should note that much which is hailed as progress contributes little or nothing to human happiness. Everything new is not eo ipso good and everything old inferior.

Technology does not automatically render obsolete the principles we found good in the past; they belong to a different order of things. Technology is not concerned with them. Principles have to do with the way we marshal our inner resources, discipline our actions and respond to the promptings of our conscience; with the ordering of our personal lives and of our relations with fellow citizens, both in private and in public life. They apply to human beings.

Technology, on the other hand, deals with material things. Technology can enlarge our powers of mind and body. With it we can improve health, produce material abundance, leisure and comfort, circle the earth with instant communications, etc. But technology does not dictate either the manner in which we put it to use or the specific benefits which we want to derive from using it.

I suggest we reject the notion that man is no longer master of his own and of his society's destiny. Let us put man back in the center of the stage and do some hard thinking about the kind of life that technology is currently creating for us. Only now, for example, are we beginning to realize that careless use of dangerous pesticides and weed killers may poison soil, vegetation, animals and humans. And it took the tragic case of the European thalidomide babies to dramatize the fatal consequences that may result from the hasty use of inadequately tested drugs.

A third threat to individual freedom has been the tremendous increase in the country's population, with all the attendant changes that this has brought. From 1800 to 1850 our population almost quintupled; from 1850 to 1900 it tripled; from 1900 to 1950 it doubled. Natural increase had as much to do with this growth as immigration. Since World War II the growth rate has accelerated so much that when the time comes to celebrate our bicentenary each citizen will have about only one percent of the voting power which individual Americans had in our first national election. A healthy infant born on that day can expect within his lifetime to see our population soar close to the billion mark—unless, of course, we ponder the consequences to the quality of American life and reverse the trend.

Space of itself bestows freedom and dignity; it gives man elbowroom and a chance to find quiet and privacy. When men are scarce each individual becomes important. Today seven out of 10 Americans live in crowded cities, suburbs, and other urban areas, and the country as a whole is more populous per square mile than was Europe at the time of our revolution. It is hard to find quiet and privacy and a chance to find unspoiled nature within reach of man. Man-made ugliness eats into the human spirit, and there is no place for our children to play in safety.

As long as a wilderness had to be subdued there was work in abundance, work of a kind that ordinary men with willing hearts and hands could do, work—useful work that bestowed dignity on the workman. We were a country of independent farmers, artisans and merchants in those days. Now nine out of ten Americans work for others, many for giant organizations where they have little opportunity to feel individually important. Today, moreover, our society is plagued with endemic unemployment, a condition under which it is difficult to hold fast to a sense of human worth. The loss falls most heavily on those—and, alas, there are all too many—who lack the skill and education for which there is demand in a complex modern society. In the past, America offered unique opportunities for social advancement to average men with average competence; today this is less and less true. America once offered steady employment even to men with average ability, but job opportunities for them have contracted drastically. Ours is still a land of opportunity, but increasingly so only for the highly skilled and educated.

With the