Individualism fosters virtue in ways that government action cannot

While COVID-19 attacks our immune systems and our economy, it also gives rise to attacks on American individualism. If the pandemic is spreading here, many argue, rugged individualism is at fault. It keeps people from wearing masks, prevents them from helping each other, and is downright dangerous.

Typical is a recent opinion piece by Leah Sears, former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, claiming that rugged individualism “is what’s killing us now.” The problem is that this understanding of rugged individualism is deeply flawed, making a political cartoon out of a fundamental and longstanding philosophy.