Are We Individualists?

Americans take pried in the fact that we are a country of individuals. This is the one nation in the world where someone can be completely themselves and not face pursection. We are a country of individuals, or are we? Many obstacles the characters from The Fountainhead, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and The Power of One had to overcome to be individuals, still face Americans today.
The characters Stephen Deadulus and Peekay shared many obstacles that we, as Americans, still face. Stephen Deadulus and Peekay were pulled in all different directions by those who cared for them. Attempting to please everyone they cared for, these two characters loss a sense of who they were. Only by drastically separating themselves physically from these influences could they find themselves. For many Americans, this act could be seen as moving away to college. Unfortunately for us, this does not give the separation we need that Stephen and Peekay found. With today's fast modes of communication and transportation, we never truly leave those who influence us. We never get the chance to stop trying to please those around us and start living for ourselves.
Living for yourself and being an individual was a large part of Ayn Rand's philosophy in The Fountainhead; this philosophy has to overcome many obstacles both in the text and in today's world. The one thing Howard Roark could never do was compromise on his architecture. Architecture was the median through which he experienced life. A compromise in architecture would have been a compromise of Howard and his life. From a young age, Americans today are taught to share, compromise and collaborate. Rand never implied that these are bad, when used in the correct way. Compromising on something we feel passionate about, is compromising ourselves. For instance, I am a very passionate runner. Nothing feels worse than when my teammates decide to cut a workout and I agree. It truly feels like I am compromising myself. It is at these times that I wish I were more like Howard, Stephen, or Peekay. Past the influence of others and compromising, there is still one obstacle the individual must overcome.
In both the books and life, the hardest obstacle to overcome is the fact that the individual is not the norm. The individual scares the other characters in the books, and it scares Americans. The solution to this is to destroy the individual. This can be done in two ways. The first is by those who care for the individual, who try to have him assimilate into the collective. The second is by those who do not care for him, in which case they ostrascize him. Our culture accepts individuality within a range. This can be seen in the many trends of the today. If we were a true group of individuals, there would be more styles of clothes, more genres of books, more artists, etc. There would be no strong trend. Our idea of individuality is allowing multiple trends to be in style at once. However, this is only making collectivism in pockets. Everyone of us has a group or title we could belong under. None of these titles are simply our name, the individual us.