Episode 43: The Myth of Rugged Individualism

Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry gets it done — on his own. Characters like Dirty Harry, and fictional cowboys from Westerns, strongly influenced scifi representations of rugged individuals.

The idea of the "rugged individual" is all over the place in science fiction--especially in the United States. Who is this loner hero, and why are there so many stories about how personal freedom is more important than the public good? We explore the idea of rugged individuals in science fiction, and talk about how this myth has shaped everything from how we make technology, to why we value privacy.

Notes, citations, etc.

The rise of private bedrooms

For more about the Frances Cleveland lawsuit, check out chapter two in The Face That Launched a Thousand Lawsuits, by Jessica Lake.

Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Frontier in American History”

The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin

In “The Moral Judgments of Henry David Thoreau,” by Kathryn Schultz, and Henry David Thoreau: A Life, by Laura Wells, you can read about how Thoreau fabricated his stories about being completely alone, and helped create the myth of the rugged individual.

Hondo, dir. John Farrow, starring John Wayne

Magnum Force (dir. Ted Post) the 1973 sequel to Dirty Harry, is where Clint Eastwood says, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

Ayn Rand and libertarianism

John Locke

Adam Smith

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises

Friedrich Hayek

Robert Nosick’s thought experiments with the “pleasure machine” are found in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia

John Rawls’ thought experiments with the “veil of ignorance” are found in his book A Theory of Justice

Sigmund Freud, “An Outline of Psycho-analysis”

You can sample some of Michel Foucault’s writings on the individual in his books Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, vol. 2: The Care of the Self

Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino

The Conan stories, by Robert E. Howard

The John Carter stories, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Michael Moorecock on rugged individualism and fascism in his essay “Starship Stormtroopers,” where he discusses John W. Campbell.

Some of John W. Campbell’s views on race were published as editorials in Analog, collected here. In one, called “Segregation,” he argues against school integration, asserting that “the Caucasian race has produced more super-high-geniuses in the last five thousand years” than any other race. In another, called “Colonialism,” he claims that European incursions into Africa were justified because “Africans were not culturally evolved.”

Samuel Delany describes how Campbell rejected a story because “he didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character.”

Franz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth is about his work as a psychoanalyst among the victims and perpetrators of French colonial rule in Algeria.