In his notable textbook, American Society, Robin M. Williams Jr. addresses the distinctiveness of American individualism. By putting an emphasis on individual personality, rather than group responsibility, he argues that it is one of the eight values distinctive to American culture. However, Williams contradicts himself by claiming that said individualism doesn’t create an estrangement from social groups, but rather against the state. The main argument of the article “Paradoxes of American Individualism” examines the contradictions in American individualism in areas such as the culture, in terms of its multivalency, as well as the debate of whether this idea of individualism is actually rather that of voluntarism: the doctrine that the will is a fundamental or dominant factor in the individual or the universe. 

In connection with the theme of individualism, the poems “America” by Walt Whitman, and “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes, both present different perspectives of American society. While the article defines the model of individualism through the freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control, it is clear that the different audiences or people that Whitman speaks for compared to Hughes has a big effect on how they both view the country. Whitman views America in an extremely positive light, labeling it as “freedom, law, and love”. He also paints the country in almost a motherly light over other nations, for them to look up to. In contrast, Hughes criticizes America on the things that Whitman praises it for. The poem not only highlights the hypocrisy between the ideals of the American dream and the harsh reality of American life, but also paints America as a nation whose ideals they so proudly boast only apply to certain people. While Whitman describes privileged America and their positive, almost ignorant viewpoint of the country, Hughes rebuttals, calling upon oppressed communities such as the poor, African Americans, and Native Americans, whose blood, sweat, and tears built and continue to build this country, to recognize America’s flaws and truthfully reinvent the nation in accordance with its ideals of liberty, equality, freedom, and justice for all.