Noble American Savagery
"God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He forces one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another's fruit. [...] He destroys and defaces all things; he loves all that is deformed and monstrous; he will have nothing as nature made it, not even man himself, who must learn his paces lie a saddle-horse, and be shaped to his master's taste like the trees in his garden." -- Rousseau, Emile
Essentially, Rousseau argues that God made Nature and man in His image, and God is good. Thus, the closer one is to or lives with nature, the closer one is to one's instinctual goodness. Thus, the "noble savage". In North America, this concept will be extended through Emerson's concept of radical individualism, the person who lives largely independent of social constraints. This type of libertarian iconography runs strong through the mythology of both conservative and liberal, right and left, redneck and hippy, American mythology.
The closer one is to the land, and the further from social constraints like education and policy, the closer one is to "Truth", to God, and to righteousness.
Right Wing or "Conservative" American Romantic Individualism:
Left Wing or "Liberal" American Romantic Individualism:
