Pioneer Life

The rugged individual was, and is, dependent upon society

Read about the pioneer life and an image hovers over the page: the “rugged individual.”  The lodestone of our history.  Surely, there is no mistaking that independent spirit who “conquered the wilderness.”  Land cleared, cabins built, fields planted, cloth spun, children born and buried.

Read carefully, however, and a far more revealing and nuanced portrait emerges.  You will see the supporting structures that enabled this idealized life, community.  From barn raisings to social support it was the neighbor and the developing forms of commercial, educational and religious life that staked individual success. 

Successful “self-mades” are social beings.  They depend upon the support of others.  Freely given cooperation has been the “secret” of our individual successes.    

Then and Now. Bill Coffin once explained the way in which social support “works” in our modern world.  How, he asked, can we be good Samaritans today?  What if we found a wounded man on a New York Street?  Take him home and wash his wounds? No. Our best choice would be not move him (internal injuries) and call an ambulance. 

But what if the ambulance doesn’t arrive, or too late? What if the hospital is understaffed or refuses service? Today’s Samaritan supports public services, like ambulances and hospital emergency rooms. Today’s Samaritan is a good citizen.  As technological advances expand the assistance we can offer each other, we can’t escape the need to strengthen and make equitable government services, to support research and pre-natal care and public health.  This is not “socialism.”  It is communal, social, responsibility.  Now as in the past it is the support structure that enables all of us to live, as individuals.