Rugged Individualism and Simple Bullheadedness

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COVID-19, government, individualism, Mary Calhoun, Matthew Holloway, public health, self-reliance, stubbornness, Three Kinds of Stubborn

One of my favorite stories comes from my mother, who was visiting a nursing home one day when she happened to overhear a resident being comforted by his pastor. The resident was an old farmer, whose infirmities and age had consigned him to the home, and he was bemoaning his fate and wishing he could end it all. The pastor assured him that the simple fact he was alive meant that his purpose in life was not over, and that God still had something He wanted him to do.

The old coot considered this for a moment. “Well, I ain’t a-gonna do it,” he said.

Every time I think of this story I am reminded of Mary Calhoun’s marvelous 1972 children’s book Three Kinds of Stubborn, in which three stubborn Missourians get into a family dispute that keeps worsening because of their refusal to abandon their eccentric positions. The book is a gentle lesson in bending, in recognizing that none of us has a corner on truth, and in the wisdom of listening to others.

Stubbornness is a version of pride, an insistence that my opinion is superior to all others and that nobody has a right to tell me what to do. And pride, convention tells us, is a sin. In some ways, this stance is connected to the rural tradition of individualism and self-reliance, which I ordinarily think of as a virtue; but there are times when individualism and self-reliance become a hindrance rather than a help.

This is such a time, as I watch with dismay my fellow-citizens behave with deliberate and truculent ignorance toward those who need their help and who are trying to help them. The COVID pandemic requires concerted, collective action, with everyone pitching in to slow the spread of the virus by following a few simple health measures, and a coordinated government effort to enforce those health measures and to trace the contacts of those who come down with the illness. Instead, we see widespread refusal to wear masks, regular occurences of spreader events that pass the virus among groups, and a deliberately feeble government response in the name of “freedom” that allows cases to skyrocket.

My morning newspaper reports 105 people in the hospital with COVID today, a new record for the county, including 29 in intensive care and 16 on ventilators. The twist in this report is that only 20 out of the 105 are from Boone County, where I live. The other 85 are from outstate, from rural counties that don’t have the hospital capacity to treat them, or possibly don’t have a hospital at all. If “out of sight, out of mind” is true, then I would imagine that some inhabitants of these rural counties might not have a clear idea of just how widespread and dangerous this epidemic is, since the patients are whisked away to a distant hospital and their local government officials appear to be taking great pains to keep them in the dark. The state government’s COVID dashboard remains consistently behind the true numbers; if you want an accurate picture of the extent of COVID in Missouri, I recommend that you follow Matthew Holloway on Facebook. He’s a private citizen who, along with a number of helpers, has made it his personal mission to comb through local health department reports, media reports, and other public sources to come up with an accurate day-to-day account of the virus in Missouri.

It shouldn’t be this way. We shouldn’t have to argue with our fellow-citizens over simple health measures. We shouldn’t have to rely on motivated citizens to give us accurate statistics. Sometimes “I ain’t a-gonna to do it” is an admirable expression of defiance to the ruffian gods. Sometimes it’s just an obstinate refusal to acknowledge the obvious.

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The Sign and the Commons

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childhood, commons, farming, Garrett Hardin, human nature, individualism, Ozarks, rural

When I was a kid, the German Community (where my mother and father grew up) had a huge signpost at the crossroads indicating the direction to each farm. I don’t know who put up the signpost, but I would guess that the Wiegensteins might have been involved, as their place was near the crossroads. It might also have been a Brewen.

Anyway, when we moved out to Reynolds County, my dad duplicated that effort, putting up a post at the fork in the road showing which way to go to each family’s house and how far it would be. When a new family moved in, or an old family moved out, he would saw up a new pine board and paint the name or take down the old sign. When age forced them off the farm, I took down his sign and have kept it ever since. Recently I freshened up the paint with the help of my daughter, and I plan to hang it as a decoration and a memory.

We hear frequent mention these days of the “tragedy of the commons,” a term used in Garrett Hardin’s famous environmental article about the hazards of unregulated common use of such things as air, water, and so forth. And we see examples of the tragedy of the commons everywhere. Yesterday I drove to St. Louis on Interstate 70, the main artery of the state, a highway which is is dreadful repair because our legislators cannot summon up the political will to fund its proper upkeep — not because they don’t recognize the need to improve it, but because their individual self-interest (getting reelected by avoiding the “he voted to raise taxes” canard) outweighs in their mind the general good that would be gained by pulling up their socks and raising the money to fix it.

But the commons — and a proper appreciation of the commons — is also a blessing. It all depends on how you view it. Nobody made a rule that a signpost be created; someone just did it. Someone with an understanding that taking time and effort to promote the general welfare (now where have I heard those words before?) is in itself a value.

Nowadays we spend a lot of time talking about individual freedom; recently I chatted with a visitor from another country, a businessman, who told me with a chuckle, “You Americans will buy anything with the word ‘freedom’ attached to it.” The underside of freedom is selfishness and the tragedy of the commons. The blessing of the commons comes from the recognition that we are all in this together, that our own individual choices have wide impact, and that we make decisions thinking about others as well as about ourselves.