The rise of expressive individualism
“I want to be an individual, like anybody else” seems to be the new American vocation. With an uncanny ability to detect trends that most commentators ignore David Brooks spots in his artful Modesty Manifesto editorial the rise of expressive individualism. Considering his Bobos in Paradise, the book that dissected American cultural trends with great accuracy, this should be no surprise. It is also fair to say that the raise of expressive individualism is an old tune. Following Bellah’s Habits of the Heart, I also explored this theme in Virtual Community and the Dilemma of Modernity.
American students no longer perform particularly well in global math tests. But Americans are among the world leaders when it comes to thinking that we are really good at math.
Students in the Middle East, Africa and the United States have the greatest faith in their math skills. Students in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan have much less self-confidence, though they actually do better on the tests.
In a variety of books and articles, Jean M. Twenge of San Diego State University and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia have collected data suggesting that American self-confidence has risen of late. College students today are much more likely to agree with statements such as “I am easy to like” than college students 30 years ago. In the 1950s, 12 percent of high school seniors said they were a “very important person.” By the ’90s, 80 percent said they believed that they were.
In short, there’s abundant evidence to suggest that we have shifted a bit from a culture that emphasized self-effacement — I’m no better than anybody else, but nobody is better than me — to a culture that emphasizes self-expansion.
