In Weighing the National Character, Fred Reed concludes that it’s what the technology makes it:
One hears much admiration from politicians of the American “national character,” by which seems to be meant the aggregate of prevailing values of the majority of the population. I gather that Americans tend to regard their national character as comprising such things as freedom, independence, individualism, and self-reliance. One thinks of Daniel Boone or Marlboro Man.In fact we no longer have these qualities and probably never will again. Generally we now embody their opposites. Modern society has become a hive of largely conformist, closely regulated and generally helpless employees who depend on others for nearly everything. The cause is less anything particularly American than the technology that governs our lives. The United States just moves faster in the direction in which the civilized world moves.
Character springs from conditions. Consider a farmer in, say, North Carolina in 1850. He was free because there was little government, self-reliant because what he couldn’t do for himself didn’t get done, independent because, apart from a few tools, he made or grew all he needed, and an individualist because, there being little outside authority, he could do as he pleased.
All of that is gone, and will not return. Freedom has given way to an infinite array of laws, rules, regulations, licenses, forms, requirements. Many make sense, may even be desirable in a complex world, don’t necessarily make for a bad life, but they cannot be called freedom. Various governments determine what our children learn, whether we can paint the shutters, who we must sell our houses to, who we can hire, what we can say if we want to keep our jobs, where we can park, and whether and how we can build an outbuilding.
People who live infinitely controlled lives become accustomed to such control. Obedience becomes natural. And so it has.
Although we speak of democracy, in fact we have little influence over the circumstances of our lives. All matters of importance — what values our children are taught, for example — are determined by remote bodies over which we have no power. When jurisdictions are large, the effort needed to change things that powerful lobbies do not want changed is prohibitive. And of course we vote for candidates, not for policies. Once elected, they do as they please.
Individualism has withered under the pressure of the mass media and a distaste for eccentricity. Self-reliance died long ago. We depend on others to repair our cars, grow our food, fix the refrigerator, and write our operating systems. The habit of reliance on others has reached the point that even the right of self-defense has come to be regarded as wrong-minded.
The gain is that these things are usually done better than we could do them ourselves. The loss is that we are utterly dependent on others. As things become more technologically complex, the reliance on specialists grows. Almost anyone could learn to repair a flathead Ford, but today’s Corolla is vulnerable only to a trained technician. Of course it’s a better car.
Most poignantly, we are become a nation of employees, fearful of losing our jobs. Prisoners of the retirement system, afraid of transgressing against the various governing bodies before whom we are helpless, unable to feed ourselves, we are at least comfortable. We are not masters of our lives.