America's Motto: Do Not Tell Me What To Do

When I teach courses on American Literature, I talk with my students about fundamental beliefs or behaviors that we might find in the texts for the class. We search for important values -- positive and negative -- that shaped the history and cultures of the United States. 

Frequently, I tell them a story about the American South. In the late 1600s, investors from England were given charters to colonize Carolina. They recruited people to travel there and develop specific allotments of land. Everything had been mapped out before their arrival, and they were intended to live and work in their assigned locations. But once they arrived, the settlers located themselves wherever they pleased, regardless of the promises they had made beforehand. Describing this in his book Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America, Gary Nash writes, "In government, as in land affairs, they did what they pleased."

This is perhaps the most fundamental American value: Do not tell me what to do.

I need my Hot Pockets!

It definitely seems more true than the phrases found on our currency. More true than the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one). More predictive of American behavior than In God We Trust.

Stop calling me Karen!

This American value of irrational individualism is evident each day with more videos of Olds and Karens refusing to wear their masks in public, despite the Coronavirus pandemic. Whether it is an older man trying to push his way into WalMart without a mask or a white woman incensed that she cannot shop bare-faced at Trader Joe's, we see a pattern of refusing to obey the rules.

Could wearing a mask help save their life?

It does not matter. Do not tell them what to do.

Could it save the life of another person?

That matters even less. They are not responsible for anyone but themselves. Oh, and do not tell them what to do.

I believe most people are sensible and considerate of others. I think most Americans who are not the President or Vice President of the United States wear masks. But we should not be surprised by the refusal to surrender one's minor freedoms for the good of others. This stubborness was present at the very beginning of the United States, and it may be responsible for hastening its end.

"Do unto others"? What does that mean?

P.S. -- I think we could easily say the attitude discussed here can be racially marked/defined; it is a white American value. Those people coming to Carolina and refusing to live where they had agreed to live? They were white, and some of them had slaves, especially those who were coming from Caribbean. The United States was founded by and for white people who resented being told what to do by an authority figure, but they seemed little bothered by telling other people what to do -- Africans and Natives, especially. A Karen, by definition is a white woman. And the olds I have seen vocally resisting the masks have been mostly white folks. The Coronavirus pandemic has coincided with the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and I wonder to what degree the hysteria against masks is driven by white people feeling threatened by demands for equality and justice. As the saying goes, "When you're privileged, equality feels like oppression."