Conformism and Individualism: American Traits 1945-Present

Anything to fit in so as to feel free to be an individual...

In 1945, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about how Americans feel a need to conform in order to feel allowed to have personality. During the war, Sartre got to see America in full war propaganda productivity. The ever enveloping advertisements, images, and other inputs he described as making it so that Americans never are truly alone. Now, we don't have WWII-style propaganda - we don't need it. It is all still true, and even moreso perhaps.

Creative people often feel alienated because they haven't earned a status that allows them to feel free from judgement. Sartre wrote about how Americans feel too free to adapt an artist's work, as one woman told him "so it can be understood." These ideas are connected. It is strange that way--

As rebellion is commodified and re-commodified with each new fad, the horizon for artists is nihilistic. The act of judgement has become the divine, not the verdict. We need to be aware of our place to exploit it - and really, we either exploit it, or we reap nothing from it.