Is it that, or is it actually the opposite is what is truly ridiculous: the idea that mere redundancy, within a very social framework, somehow constitutes laudable “self-reliance”?
ISTM that “self-reliance” is a short hand way for some in this thread to say that others should not be wanting any help from me, coupled with the fantasy that they got theirs without help from others.
What is rational to do or to not do to be prepared for disaster, or as a result of living in an area with fewer reliable services, or apocalypse, as some have discussed here, is not “self-reliance”.
Knowing how to sew your clothes or do home repairs is not “self-reliance”.
“Self-reliance” is an American myth of the individual cowboy on the plains, the heroic maverick, the drifter even. To a large degree it is a toxic myth used to justify contempt for those who benefit from a safety net, and the disregard of responsibility for each other.
Aiming to be able to help others and accepting help when needed, hoping to have the cards that one is in a position to help more often than to need help, knowing none of us are able to function without the help of others, from family to co-workers, to society as a whole, being able to rely on each other rather than ourselves alone? Being for ourselves but not ourselves alone? I’d rather elevate myths that celebrate that.
Talking past each other again. I totally agree and vote for more safety nets. I help others all the time.
And while I do as much as I can on my own, I call the pros when needed. I’m not an idiot. I know when I need help. That in itself is a sign of self reliance. Ya gotta know your limitations.
No one got where they are today on their own. But it is good to pick up as many skills as you can along the way.
When you don’t get what you want, you get experience.
Society is a complex adaptive system. For such systems to work, the people at the bottom need agency to make decisions. Even ants make decisions on their own.
To make effective decisions, you need agency. You need the freedom to decide, make choices, and act on them. You need free access to the same information everyone else has. The actions of individual agents are coordinated by the interactions of everyone in the system.
So the true answer is that everyone needs to operate in a cooperative system, but within their own individual sphere they should have maximum freedom and self- reliance. This is the way all complex social systems work. Individual choices leading to emergent collective action.
Where people go wrong is when assuming that collective action ‘A’ is a social good, then trying to impose it from the top down by overriding peoole’s agency, controlling the flow of information, etc… Then you get unintended consequences, pushback, loss of trust in leaders and systems, and chaos.
Doubling back to this - less ethos than mythos.
Those areas are huge beneficiaries of assistance at many levels. Scarcely self-reliant. But the mythology is still strong.
Sticking to this definition - is it?
I could spend time and energy learning electrical and plumbing and probably get to a point I could do some of the stuff I now hire others to do. But they have the experience to do it in a fraction of the time and better and in that time I could have been earning more using my skill set, or engaging in other activities that are more fun for me.
That seems to me to be the diametric opposite of self reliant. It’s being smart. By being dependent on (i.e. asking for help from) others.
To me, your definition of self reliant is overly broad.
I never said they were right, just that it’s how that particular segment of the population thinks. They don’t see the commonalities between themselves and the lower income urban population, and are immersed in that mythos, so in essence they vote against stuff that might actually benefit them, because they perceive it to be a problem of other people, somewhere else, and who don’t have the same values that they have.
It’s not right or accurate, but AFAIK, that’s how they think. Meanwhile, the suburban conservatives take a different approach, still self-reliance based, and that’s that the poor have essentially the same upbringing and chances that they do, and that any poverty/etc… is their fault, because they weren’t self reliant enough to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.
Again, not right or accurate, but that’s the thinking. Sort of a “If they didn’t get good grades in high school, avail themselves of any of the myriad of ethnic-based scholarships out there, and/or then go on to college/trade school/military, it’s their fault and problem if they end up poor.” kind of thinking. To be fair, they’re not cutting low-performing white people any slack either; if anything there are higher expectations- if you’re poor and white, it’s considered to have been sheer abject incompetence that got you there.
Basically the whole thing is that self-reliance is part of having an individualistic society, and not a collective one. That’s the main difference- if people view their successes (whatever they may be) as being the results of their own efforts, they’re going to view self-reliance as a positive thing, and impart a certain reverence for it to their children and society. And it’s why people get pissed if you tell them that their success isn’t their own; you’re devaluing their sacrifices and effort which for many people are still quite significant, even if it’s not in the vacuum they assume it to be.
Yes, I am sticking to that.
But I’m no fool. Like I said (perhaps you missed it) I hire pros when it’s beyond me or there is no point in learning something that I will do once (probably poorly)
For instance, I’m nearing retirement. 30 years in the same ‘job’. And the code I’ve written will go away. Instead of designing new code, others need to do it. I’m making training videos of my stuff so they CAN be self reliant, and not depend on me.
I’m pushing them to be self reliant, but leaving some bread crumbs as it where, In case my stuff breaks (it will, everything breaks).
Exact opposite. One poster asked if I made my own car.
What has helped me my entire life is to be a jack of all trades. No, I can’t always fix it, or want to fix it, but you can at least know who to call or what tools you need. When it takes two or three months to get help, well… you’re sort of on your own.
For conservatives I think it is less about “getting good grades” as it is about signaling you are “one of them”. Stuff like going to the right schools, joining the right clubs, being born in the right towns to the right families. It’s very much an attitude of “this is the way we’ve always done things and these are the people we’ve always done it with”. It becomes a path that is both difficult to enter and leave.
Of course, it isn’t really “self reliance” if your economic future is dependent on going to school, studying hard, getting good grades, and then having some corporation give you a job. At every step of that path, someone else is setting their criteria for your success. It’s kind of why the high school dropout who manages to start his own company and make a fortune is the ultimate modern expression of self reliance. It’s a misleading one as it’s relatively uncommon and it also ignores the fact that most high school aged kids don’t know shit.
I’m going to continue.
I used to be on a search and rescue team. The biggest thing that was repeated over and over was, don’t become a victim that we have to rescue too. All sorts of protocols for that.
Same for fire fighters I’m sure.
I totally understand that people need help. All of us do. But a little bit of thought towards self reliance goes a long, long way.
It’s also misleading because the ability to start one’s own company depends on the pre-existence of a whole lot of structure, both physical and otherwise, that was set up and is being maintained by other people.
I suspect that some (not all) of this discussion is a matter of terminology. Because there’s nothing about “don’t become a victim that we have to rescue too” that reads like self-reliance to me. Maybe even the reverse – ‘don’t rely on yourself to be able to handle everything and anything, instead make sure to work with your team so everybody stays as safe as possible’.
Are you using “self-reliance” just to mean “competence”?
I think that’s largely @thorny_locust’s difference in terminology/perspective. It’s self-reliant to succeed at that, if the rules of the game are fixed, and the conditions are static. It’s perceived as a matter of gumption to navigate it all and be successful, as it’s not there to help you succeed, but considered something more like environmental challenges, like climbing a mountain, or running a marathon or something along those lines. Going to college and getting a degree is succeeding despite the hurdles placed in your path.
Whether or not it requires a university to provide that environmental challenge is beside the point in that mindset, and doesn’t mean you were reliant on them.
Yeah. For sure.
Yeah, maybe that wasn’t a very good example But we had tools to help if the worst happened and we had to rely on ourselves.
I do. You’re not self reliant if you rely on the school system to educate your kids. Or you rely on other people to build your cars.
What is your definition of self-reliant?
Obviously there are all different forms and degrees of “self reliance”. There’s the basic level of self reliance of being able to go out into the world, maintain a job, and enjoy some standard of living.
I think what we are talking about here is a sort of “toxic self reliance”, which is really more like a philosophy of selfishness on the order of sociopathy or narcissism. It’s like men who emulate Tyler Durden from Fight Club or women who connect with “Amazing” Amy Dunn’s “cool girl” monologue from Gone Girl. It’s a mentality that not only has the world or the system or whoever has wronged them somehow, but that they are inherently mentally and/or physically superior to most people. The system (run and enabled by inferiors) has kept them down and prevented them from achieving their full potential, therefore they are fully justified to lash out and attack that same system by whatever means necessary.
Even Atlas Shrugged only works because the protagonists are so incontrovertibly superior and the antagonists are so clearly corrupt and incompetent. And because of that, the heroes of the story are justified in resorting to piracy, sabotage, fraud, and other forms of violence.
Applied at a societal level, it creates a winner take all mentality where people only worship individual strength, wealth, and power and abhor any form of weakness. It discourages the sort of mutual cooperation that is necessary for civilization to thrive. Basically a form of fascism.
I’m not saying that we all need to sit around banging drums and singing Kumbaya. But society can’t function if people fundamentally believe the institutions that society runs on don’t work on at least some level.