Where to Put Self-Reliant, Rugged Individualists?

In fiction that tries to provide a wide diversity of cultural stances on the collectivism-individualism stances, there is often a trope that self-reliant, no-nonsense, rugged individualists (as a dominant demographics) are found either in the equivalent of the Wild West, or in space (Moon or Asteroid Belt seem popular places). However, this trope often receives criticism based on the historical fact that the Wild West was predominately collectivist-leaning (or at least so Americans tell us), and of course space exploration in our timeline so far was dominated by big governments like USA and USSR.

Which brings me to the question: when spreading the cultural spectrum and deciding where to put self-reliant, rugged individualists, where should they be placed? Note that I'm not talking about merely individualism of expression (in an otherwise neutral/collectivistic network of inter-reliance, as in modern civilised places), but individualism complete with strong self-sufficiency/self-reliance; nor am I talking about parasitic behaviour that is self-centred but reliant on others. And sure, I understand that it's impossible to completely nullify reliance on others on any decent tech level, but I'm talking about reducing it. I'm talking about a demographic whose social connections are more loose, and who value the efficiency of specialisation less and the reliability/redundancy/robustness of self-sufficiency more as compared to human society on average.

Fictional examples of such characters seem to be usually frontiersmen like the the small bands of Hulder and some brinkers in Eclipse Phase, wormhole dwellers in EvE Online, some fantasy rangers who live off the land and craft a huge portion of their own gear, and libertarian-leaning asteroid miners in some other, older settings that I can't remember. But those very examples tend to be targets of criticism for the choice of environment. I'd like to be better at picking the environments for those attitudes. I do not seek ways to invalidate that concept - it's a 'how to yes' question, not a 'why not' question.

The question seeks either examples of good environments where such an attitude would be more fitting, or changes that should be made to existing environments that would make such a survival strategy more appropriate (resulting in the local demographic being predominately individualist). For the scope of this question, humans are the target species, though moderately modified humans are also suitable when discussing futuristic choices (i.e. no posthuman I-am-a-starship people; similarly, I'd like to return the topic of aliens that evolved towards such leanings in a separate question at a later time).

posted over 5 years ago

vicky_molokh‭

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