Aaron Williams

5- 28-17

Blog 2

Today in my blog I’m going to focus on the rugged individualism fallacy. Within the blog I’m going to talk about the benefits and flaws of this fallacy.

After gathering an understanding about this fallacy I never pictured how many of us was raised on this fallacy, not from being force to live this way but by the structure of our society in the United States. Growing up your parents, family members, and peers also says/pushes you to be the best person you can be. For an example, if you’re gifted in academics or in sports you always here the saying “practice make perfect” or “hard work beat talent any day when talent doesn’t work to better themselves”. These quotes basically sum up what the rugged individualism fallacy is about.

Now by having a general understanding about this fallacy, now lets dig deeper into this fallacy. In America we are an individualism country, which mean we consider and put our needs first before we consider the next person.  This trait is developed at a young age from what we are taught. We are taught to be independent, responsible, and think for ourselves, this is part of the rugged individualism fallacy. The flaws in this method is, say if you’re going through hard times and need a shoulder to lean on to get through this hard times, you want have people by your side because doing your life you lived only for yourself and showed folks you don’t need them. Also you want be able to establish good friendships because you will be looked at by your peers as selfish, self-centered this wouldn’t allow you to build trust and loyalty amongst other people.

Another part of this fallacy is the demand of being unique. What it mean by being unique is the matter of being a certain way where no one can relate to you. Even though you may not be a unique person society wants you to. We must be able to establish and separate ourselves from other so we want be classified or seen by others as the average person or the same as everyone else. The flaw in this method is forcing people to be something their not. Being unique isn’t a common trait that everyone is born with and making people fill left out or not feeling accepted by not being unique, put a strain on society by costing stress and depression.

Another part of this fallacy we are taught at a young age is focusing on our strength and abilities so we can improve ourselves. Also we must work in areas to improve our weakness. I don’t see a flaw in this part of the method. I totally agree with these one because in order to improve we must work on our strengths but to become a well-rounded person we must work on our weakness too. I can relate to this by using sports as my example. In sports our coaches always tell us to practice our strengths because when times get tuff you must rely on your strengths and techniques to take over. Working on your weakness will allow you to make plays that you didn’t think was possible.

This fallacy hit home on the way I think and grew up. I wouldn’t say I am an individual because I grew up on respecting others, listening, and never think your way is the only way of doing something. But I was taught to put yourself first because people are evil and will cross you out at the end of the day. So being by yourself isn’t a bad thing you just got to know how to balance working with others and yourself out.