Writing in the 1820s, Robert Owen urged less individualism because he thought selfishness to be destructive to American society.  Writing in the 1840s, Ralph Waldo Emerson advocated more individualism because he deemed conformity to be destructive to American society.  These two arguments have comprised an enduring paradox of American culture ever since the so-called “Age of Jackson” -- an idealization of individualism right alongside an idealization of community, and a fear of selfishness right alongside a fear of conformity.

1.  So, how is it possible for a culture to hold such fundamentally contradictory impulses at the same time -- both individualism and community -- without combusting?

2.  How do you manage to reconcile these two contradictory impulses, so that they don’t cancel each other out, but can be part of the same person, just as they can be part of the same culture?  Are you contradictory in this way?