Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist
No More Secondhand God (1963)
1960s
“Americans are so individualistic, they do not realize their individualism is a communally derived value.”
Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)
Context: Americans are so individualistic, they do not realize their individualism is a communally derived value. The American I is deconstructed for me by Paolo, an architect who was raised in Bologna: "You Americans are not truly individualistic, you merely are lonely. In order to be individualistic, one must have a strong sense of oneself within a group." (The "we" is a precondition for saying "I.") Americans spend all their lives looking for a community: a chatroom, a church, a support group, a fetish magazine, a book club, a class action suit... illusions become real when we think they are real and act accordingly. Because Americans thought themselves free of plural pronouns, they began to act as free agents, thus to recreate history. Individuals drifted away from tribe or color or 'hood or hometown or card of explanation, where everyone knew who they were... Americans thus extended the American community by acting so individualistically, so anonymously.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Americans are so individualistic, they do not realize their individualism is a communally derived value." by Richard Rodríguez?
Richard Rodríguez127
American journalist and essayist 1944Related quotes
Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker
Source: One is A Crowd: Reflections of An Individualist (1952), p. 3
Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist
Source: 1970s-1980s, The Limits Of Organization (1974), Chapter 1, Rationality: Individual And Social, p. 16
Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker
Source: One is A Crowd: Reflections of An Individualist (1952), pp. 3-4
Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician
Jussi Halla-aho (2005), published in the blog Scripta Ihmisarvosta http://www.halla-aho.com/scripta/ihmisarvosta.html, April 13, 2005 <br class="br">2005-09
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)
Remarks at Naturalization Ceremonies at Monticello, Virginia https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760649.htm (5 July 1976) <br class="br">1970s
Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York
Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: Almost all Americans accept some religious values as a part of our public life. We are a religious people, many of us descended from ancestors who came here expressly to live their religious faith free from coercion or repression. But we are also a people of many religions, with no established church, who hold different beliefs on many matters.
Our public morality, then — the moral standards we maintain for everyone, not just the ones we insist on in our private lives — depends on a consensus view of right and wrong. The values derived from religious belief will not — and should not — be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus.
That those values happen to be religious values does not deny them acceptability as a part of this consensus. But it does not require their acceptability, either.
J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972) American law enforcement officer and first director of the FBI
The Elks Magazine (August 1956).
Francis Schaeffer (1912–1984) American theologian
A Christian Manifesto (1982)
Context: His death there on Calvary's cross is for us individually, but it's not egotistically individualistic. Our individual salvation will one day be a portion of the restoration of all things. It is our calling until He comes back again that happy day, to do all we can — while it won't be perfect as when He comes back — to see substantial healing in every area that He will then perfectly heal, and that Wesley did understand.
