America’s Great, Flawed Ideology of Individualism

America’s ever more obvious cultural disintegration and social paralysis, and its erosion of national identity and purpose, are not minor or temporary problems, but are symptoms of a deep-rooted social-political illness and a systemic failure of the country’s democratic-capitalist System. In large measure, this sickness is the predictable, inevitable consequence of America’s basic ideology of “pursuit of happiness” individualism. A guiding outlook that was useful, and perhaps even necessary, in an earlier age is now a liability. The ideology laid out in the US Declaration of Independence greatly encouraged this country’s astonishing dynamism, growth, inventiveness and prosperity, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But the core outlook that once contributed to this country’s development is incapable of sustaining a stable and healthy society. Especially in recent decades, America’s “pursuit of happiness” ideology has, inevitably and inexorably, been hastening our nation’s social-political dissolution and decline