The Death of Tribes and the Rise of the American Dream

Starting over is as American as Apple pie but just like pie too much is bad for you. As individuality progresses people pull away from their communities. This is unhealthy. Humans are social animals and as we pull away from those around us we suffer.

When humans were still tribal animals, children didn't leave, they didn't start over. They made their tribes larger, more rich. In the tribal era cultures were less homogenized and groups were more tightly knit. As a result there was greater discrimination. Our engrained fear of what is different from ourselves made discrimination and oppression of those we could.

The advent of the individual is hardly a bad thing. It has allowed great leaps forward in human rights as well as innovation in diverse fields of study. The importance of the individual allowed our civilization to move beyond agrarian based societies. It allowed for increased class mobility in addition to giving us a wider web of interpersonal connections.

Where this individuality and self reinventing becomes unhealthy is when we are so fiercely independent and reinvented that we cut ties with those from our past. The movie Whip It said it best, "You don't give up your old family just because you found a new one."