Download PDFAddressing the Problem
The nature of discourse surrounding the United States’ dominant individualistic culture reveals differences in historical truth. These differences are demonstrated within the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender, which present contrasting depictions of conservative and progressive discourse throughout a previous cultural trauma, the Great Depression. Progressive and marginalized historical narratives reveal a myth of individualism that functions on power. Those with power propel the myth of individualism through manipulative silences, which “are those that deliberately conceal relevant information from the reader/listener” (Huckin 348). In this essay, I will explore the manipulative silences in print media from the Great Depression.
The Great Depression highlighted failures of the individualist, capitalist system, but our current cultural trauma reveals just the same. Topics, such as individualism, capitalism, and marginalization have become part of the discourse surrounding COVID-19. COVID-19 reveals the implications of the United States’ dominant individualist narrative, especially “persons identifying as Black or Hispanic and younger workers” (Congressional Research Service 2), through unemployment, healthcare insecurity, unequal educational opportunity, racist policing structures, among others. COVID-19 and the Depression highlight similar failures of the system, which prompts doubts about the validity of this system––much less its historical accuracy and power relations within the socio-economic state.