I’ve been thinking this past week about a class I took during my undergraduate degree, called “Political
Thought in American Film”. It was class in my minor that combined two things I love, politics and movies… how could I resist? Specifically, I’ve been thinking about two films we watched in weeks next to each other, the 1953 American Western “Shane”, and the 1972 classic mountain-man movie “Jeremiah Johnson”.
The two movies present very different views of community and the American Dream. In Shane, it is the community, all of the western farmers and ranchers that Shane is fighting to save… the community is set as the highest American ideal. The community is banded together against the powerful individual. In Jeremiah Johnson, the highest American ideal is not community, but rugged individualism. If anything, the lead character is running away from community because it limits his freedom. Even though life is hard, brutish, and potentially short as a mountain man at war with the entire Crow Nation, at least he has his freedom.
I’ve been thinking about the different ideals presented in these two movies (both of which I’ve shown in Ministerial Movie Nights before). Each of these movies was iconic for their generation. How is it that in twenty years we went from an American ideal that named community as our highest value, to an American ideal that set that highest value in rugged individualism?
Whether that movement was intentional or not, the movement toward “rugged individualism” has led most Americans to a lowered place of power in relation to the rest our society and culture. Believing individualism to be synonymous with America, we have become more and more fractured in our politics. We often live (especially white Americans) in communities where we do not know our neighbors. We are living with the aftermath of a manifestation of the American Dream that we will all have our own houses on isolated plots of land. We are busily dismantling all unionizing and collective bargaining, in the name of individual freedom. We are busily selling off, or “privatizing” the commons, or all of those things that we the people used to own in common, through the government we elect and control. In many ways, our government has also been sold off and privatized, just as so much else of what was once the “commons” has been. Our politics have become more and more fragmented, until our “communities” become little more than echo chambers for individual beliefs… the “People for the Cleanliness of Shopping Carts” syndrome.
No matter how free you are, most individuals can never hope to affect the overall structure of our society alone. And when groups are single issue focused, they are not poised to create radical societal or structural transformation.
One of the geniuses of the Evangelical movement in America has been that they have kept to the “Shane” sense of community. They have set an ideal higher than individualism, and I believe that has been part of their success. With the community they offer comes both a political and a religious creed, and they have been successful in promulgating both of these because of the human desire and need for community.
When Sandy and I moved to California, we looked into a lot of different places to live. Knowing that we wanted to be able to have guests stay with us, we were particularly looking for a two bedroom, preferably one with more than 900 square foot. And, knowing that we each have student loans, we were looking to not spend too much to find it.
All of the 2 bedroom apartments in Ventura were out of our hoped for price range. To live in Ventura, we would need to make do with a 700 square foot one bedroom… and there was question about how well she and I would do in that small an apartment. And so, we looked further out, and found a 1000 square foot 2 bedroom apartment, with a two car garage, in an apartment complex in Oxnard, California, about ten miles away from the church I serve (although only about a mile and a half from Sandy’s job on the Navy Base). It was in our price range, and the cat loves that it is two stories (she can “stalk from above” using the stairs.)
One thing about the apartment complex, and the management called me several times before we signed the lease to make sure I understood… it is in a Latino community. Particularly, it is a community where many migrant farm workers stay when they are in this area. The apartment management had encountered problems before where non-Latino’s had moved in only to be very uncomfortable with the community. They wanted to make sure we understood. I assured them that my wife is from an immigrant family, and I had lived in Latino communities before.
Now, it is not a question of safety. Sandy and I feel completely safe here (or at least once the community knew who we were, and that we were not a threat). As I said to someone who asked me recently about whether or not I felt safe “living in South Oxnard”, I responded that in the entire three months we’ve been here, I’ve yet to hear a single gunshot. On the South Side of Chicago, gunshots were a nightly occurrence. (Sandy still has not forgiven me for the night she heard a loud series of bangs, and asked me what they were. I told her, matter-of-factly that it was AK-47 fire, and she should just go to sleep, as if nothing was wrong).
No, what is different about this community is that everyone knows each other. The children all play in front of our door. I know most of the children now, and they all know me. The way their play area is structured, they regularly have to ask me to give them back their soccer balls, (which they have kicked onto my patio). We are just now getting to the point that many of the parents and adults will talk to Sandy and I, and I am amazed by the conversations.
One of the things I have been reflecting on is our different concepts of space. For Sandy and I, the apartment we have is just the right size for the two of us (and Athena, of course). Yet, for many of those who live in our complex, they would have 10+ people living in an apartment our size. Many of them are temporary, and will move to another area after a few months… but they come back. The community they have is shared.
As soon as I am on the plane, I am completely calm. If you have the same panic fear, it will be possible to order Valium on https://www.glowdentaldallas.com/dental-services/valium/.
It has been highlighting for me the difference between Communitarianism, and Individualism as the high ideal of a culture. I’ve been asking myself what value is freedom when you are alone?
The media reports about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and all of its daughter movements, claim that the motivating force behind the movement is economic disparity… but I’m not so sure. I wonder if this is what it looks like when western society re-discovers community as the highest American Ideal.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David