ABSTRACT
National culture usually implies togetherness of some sort, either a collective mass or a unity of individualists as in the United States. Separateness fits on a continuum from individual introversion as a personality dimension to group secession. Isolates and hermits as well as secessionist movements provide a contrast to ordinary views of culture similar to how dystopias project a negative image of the ideals of social life. At the macrosocial, national level, successful secession is venerated as the achievement of independence. A group of individuals intending to resist what they perceived as federal government oppression of their rights as independent rural ranchers maintained an occupation in force of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. The verdict suggests some level of official tolerance for the action and illustrates well the tension between the universalism of the law and the individual liberty that it is designed to protect, a good entry point for a discussion of the polarity universalism-particularism.
