Read

The Link Between Self-Reliance and Well-Being

By Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic

“I saw not merely the victim of a broken culture and economy, but also a version of the fabled “rugged individualist”: the cowboy; the pioneer; the immigrant. She insists on self-reliance, lives by her wits without self-pity, and sees the welfare of others as a kind of prison.” Brooks opens up the article with a review of the film Nomadland. For a long time these archetypes are often praised in pop culture. However, with Nomadland, it seems like this is shifting. For them, they see Nomadland as portrayal of when individualism can go array, even in America.

Individualism is broken down into three core characteristics: Responsibility, uniqueness, and ambition. It’s been found that people who strive for the above do so in the pursuit of happiness (because they believe it is worthwhile) which leads to reporting a greater sense of well being. The assumption being that working towards happiness = greater well being. Not just that, but individualist societies are perceived as being more open, accepting of self expression which builds trust and tolerance over time. Fore reference, the US and UK have the most individualistic cultures, followed by Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada. The least individualistic countries are Venezuela, Colombia, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

If there is a miss-match with the person to the broader culture, that person’s well being is at risk. Meaning, if you’re an individualist in a collectivist society, you’ll probably be less happy and vice versa. They cite that immigrants in the US report a higher sense of self-reliance than non-immigrants.

The article ends with two suggestions to harbour good individualistic practices.

Don’t go it alone - Self reliance ≠ isolation. This is a good suggestion and one that reaches back to the quote from the beginning of the article. Individualists suffer in collectivist societies not because they are individualists, but because they end up navigating society alone and limit their relationships.

Think for yourself - meaning, sometimes you really need to think outside of the box and put forth some nonconventional ideas.

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Watch

The Farewell

By Lulu Wang, A24

The Farewell, isn’t a foreign film. It’s an independent film. The film is about a girl who has lost touch with her family and roots having been born and growing up in the US. While I’d like to get into, I want to speak more to an interview by Awkwafina, who is the lead in the film. She was on late night discussing the premier of the film and It’s a nice snippet that speaks exactly to the theme of this week’s newsletter.

In the interview Awkwafina talks about how she took her grandmother (who is Chinese) and her aunt (who is El Salvadorian) to a screening of the film. The film is about how in China when your relatives get old and get sick, no one tells them. When this plot point is revealed in the film Awkwafina’s aunt is somewhat shocked and surprised, “there’s no way they do this. This can’t be legal?” On the other side of Awkwafina’s, her grandmother’s reaction, “Duh, yeah they do it. How did you not know?” This is the best. But then Awkwafina asks her grandmother if that is what she wants, “you better not do that to me.” You get the sense that Awkwafina’s grandmother was an individualist who escaped a collectivist society.

The Farewell is a great film about the tensions between individualists and collectivists. It’s able to capture how the relationship between the two can be stressful at times - especially in times where and when family get thrown into the mix. I like this film because it captured this in a way not a lot of other films like it do. Other films will stretch out on these themes but speak more to generational differences or cultural differences. And while those are covered in the film, it seems to take it a steps further.

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Listen

The U.S. Is Just Different — So Let’s Stop Pretending We’re Not

By Stephen Dubner and Brent Katz, Freakonomics

I’ve had a few conversations with people who are perplexed as to why one country can’t just adopt another’s policies. Why can’t the US have parental leave? Why does it take 6 steps to set up a business in France when it only takes about 2 in the US. It’s not just about policy, it’s about culture, specifically about individualistic and collectivist societies cultures. Culture can shape our minds and bodies and in this episode of Freakonomics, they explore the theory of tightness and looseness and why sociological and Psych studies have a bias for the west.

The breakdown is simple:

Looseness = innovation & creativity

Tightness = unity & compliance

Loose cultures tend to be more liberal, but they also tend to lack self control. Loose countries have higher rates of obesity, drug and alcohol abuse and violence. While Tight countries have more norms and rules, they also have less jay walking and litter. Areas that have a higher threat level will be tighter, this includes threats like natural disasters, war, or terrorism. For individuals, this can be tested through what is known as the Ash Conformity Test. It tests people on their willingness to conform to a group. As noted above, looseness and tightness are similar if not exactly the same as individualist and collectivist - 1/3 of Americans conform to the test, whereas people in collectivist countries like Japan and Zimbabwe, conform with much higher rates.

Just like the tight and loose, there is also a theory that every human being can be divided into two camps: chaos and order. More practically, you can be identified by a type of muppet, Bert or an Ernie, Or as Stephen and his guest discuss, how you load your dishwasher. Order and Chaos are often depicted in literature/pop culture, through men and women. In the bible it’s Adam and Eve, in Greek mythology is Gaia and Uranus. Order & Chaos is something psychologists, sociologists, and basically anyone else who studies human behaviour love to fit people around (Jordan Peterson’s self help books are influence by Jung’s concepts of Chaos & Order). It’s always nice when you can fit over 6 billion people into two groups. In a world where women are often depicted as chaotic, emotional, unstable, and lacking self-control, it is no surprise that they end up worse off in tighter societies if they slip up. When women and people with ethnic minority backgrounds breach norms or rules in those countries (like coming into work late), they are often subject to higher punishment.

This was a pretty packed episode where they also discussed how the topic is not free from criticism. Most of the studies done to observe and assess human behaviour are predominantly conducted in WEIRD countries. WEIRD distinguishes a group of people and countries as:

Western

Educated

Industrialised

Rich

Democratic

What this means is that while we can make up these norms and rules, they’re not really useful outside of these countries or cultures. Not only that, but the studies themselves need to check their bias for how and where they implement these theories before they inform policy making.