@rickf because we have a robust #WelfareState for #corporations and the expectation of #RuggedIndividualism for actual human citizens of the USA.

America, fuck yeah! /s

There's a #RuggedIndividualism thread to the portrayal of Vimes in the Discworld books, too. He's taking everything onto himself because the state is not to be trusted.

I think this resonates with some other narratives from the Discworld. Even if the books aren't exactly pro-#capitalist, there's a general association of social #liberalism with #industry: as Ankh-Morpork becomes more industrial, it also becomes more inclusive.

@argentum The term "rugged individualism" which is so often trotted out is quite literally a 1928 political slogan by Herbert Hoover.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rugged+individualism&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Crugged%20individualism%3B%2Cc0

If you look at early mentions of the term, virtually all are blisteringly critical.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22rugged+individualism%22&lr=lang_en&source=lnt&tbs=lr%3Alang_1en%2Ccdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1928%2Ccd_max%3A1948&tbm=bks

It is of course a divide-and-conquer tactic.

By contrast, Hobbes' Leviathan is dominated by discussion of the common weal and commonwealth.

@londubh

#RuggedIndividualism #CommonWeal #CommonWealth #Hobbes

Seriously, given the opportunity to try something different, why in the fuck would I opt to continue putting every shred of energy I have into smashing my head into the brick wall one more time, in the hopes that... what? That I'll come out brick-shaped?

I'm sick and tired of existing in a paradigm where I'm a problematic edge case at *best.* I'm done wasting energy on it, at least for now. Plans are changing.

And American #ruggedindividualism? Can go FUCK itself.