The Individual's Ancient Enemies

There Is Nothing New About Collectivism Or Progressivism

As long as human beings have been social there has been a struggle between individual liberty and those extreme tendencies that pull us away. These enemies of the individual fall into two categories, self-centeredness and group-centeredness. Both of these enemies take on and have taken on many names throughout history. Today I'm going to name a few of them.

The Worthy Struggle

First I feel a need to point out why this epic struggle matters. Individual liberty is the prime enabler of individual expression, individual thought, and ultimately innovation and invention. While those who don't share my zeal for individual liberty may disagree, it is none the less for me and millions of others, the engine of progress and hope for a brighter future. Without it we may manage some things, but with it we speed into the future with a well founded confidence that we will meet whatever challenges it may hold and be at least adequate to them. And even if with some greatly diminished individual liberty we might achieve some greater thing, there would be no point in it, for as Patrick Henry so memorably suggested, even death is preferable to life without liberty. And further, even if some catastrophe over-comes us because of our unwillingness to abandon liberty, we would have taken the better option between extinction and survival as something less than human.* In short, the struggle for individual liberty is the struggle both for a life worth living and a struggle for the best that we as a species can do, for the pursuit of that latter is what makes the former.

Now for the enemies list.

Self-centeredness

Whenever I read scholarly works on individualism I see this repeated error, mistaking the avid pursuit for individual liberty for a totally self-centered self-interest. There are even those who favor individual liberty who mistakenly believe that if everyone looks completely out for themselves, without regard for most anyone else, the world will be a better place. It is in their belief system that some how everything will work out for the best this way. Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged is often associated with this sort of view, though I personally would not say if the characterizations of her philosophy are fair or not. I just haven't read enough of her works to do my own analysis.

The term for this sort of philosophy as characterized is Social Darwinism. Whoever may be the source of it, it is just one of the latest masks worn by this particular ancient enemy of individual liberty. This ancient enemy, no matter what mask it chooses to wear, always uses the same tactic. It essentially argues that everyone should be free to do whatever pleases them, and that will allow the strong to have their way and the weak much less so, and in the process the best of humanity will rise to lead us to our best as a species.

The power of this argument is that it resembles the argument for individual liberty so much that many individualist fall for it, the parts about letting people do what they please and the being led to be our best as a species. The problem with it is that it doesn't actually say what it sounds like it's saying. For this philosophy, when it says everyone should be free to do whatever pleases them, it really means no one should try to stop the strong from picking on the weak. That's a far cry from cherishing individual liberty, not to mention a recipe for civil disorder.

Logically there's a huge problem with this as well. You can't be for the individual if you want your own interests to run over someone else's, since they are an individual too. The logical ends of Social Darwinism is also antithetical to the struggle for individual liberty. Once the strong rise to the top to lead, what are they? Their power over other individuals is as absolute as their acknowledged superiority. They are virtual despots. While it is true any individual would be free in a society based on Social Darwinism to challenge those at the top, their actual individual liberty would be limited not just by their willingness to exercise it, but by the strength of their personal resources to overcome those established before them. How can this be individualism? Can an individualist be in favor of a system that by design only grants liberty to some, but not most? Social Darwinism is just another excuse amongst many for the supposed right of some to rule others.

Another common mask of this enemy today is the “do your own thing”, “live and let live”, “everyone just leave everyone else alone”, and “do what feels good” philosophy. For some this is a not so well thought out philosophy but one they follow none the less. For others it is one of considerably deeper thought. The ancient Greeks formalized this in the philosophy called Hedonism.

Unlike Social Darwinism, there is supposed to be no conflict of interests in a Hedonistic society. This is because everyone's goal is to maximize personal pleasure and minimize pain, and it is in that part about minimizing pain that people are expected to avoid conflicts with others whenever possible.

In spite of the negative connotations associated with the term Hedonism, the actual core of the philosophy has a lot of appeal, but I see a few problems with it none the less. One big one in particular as is relevant to the struggle for individual liberty is it looks outward in only a passive and selfish way, that of avoiding pain. What happens if your neighbor's liberty is threatened? Why should you care?

To Hedonism's defense, in a totally Hedonistic society your neighbor's liberty would never be threatened, but the problem with that defense is we don't live in such a society, and without a lot of caring about more than just pleasure and pain, we have little chance of ever living in one. Hedonism is essentially, in a way, trying to live as though individual liberty has been secured and continues to be safe whether that's true or not. And as any psychologist can tell you, pretending a problem isn't there or can never be there only helps the problem.

Then of course there is just raw self-centeredness and self-indulgence. There is little long-term value to any philosophy that centers on these things. Perhaps if there is no meaning to our lives, our existence, these could be worthy center-pieces to a serious philosophy, but for those of us who struggle earnestly for anything beyond our most basic physical needs, we at the very least believe we know better, so on that very large common ground I'll say no more about this, the least reputable expression of self-centeredness.

Group-centeredness

The pursuit of maximizing individual liberty is a balancing act. Self-centeredness is one direction to fall in where only the strong end up with liberty, for lack of protection for the weak. The other direction to fall is Group-centeredness where the individual is diminished in the name of the group.  They are the two extremes of a spectrum.  Interesting to me is that which ever way we fall, if we fall, we end up in essentially the same place. Here are some of the recent masks of this other extreme.

Collectivism is one. I tend to use this term to describe all of the group-centered systems across the ages, but most think of it only in its contemporary form, which justifies itself as looking out for the least fortunate in society (See the Wikipedia entry for a relatively neutral definition). One of the arguments of collectivism is that there is a common good that over-rides individual liberty and dignity from time to time. Some of its proponents go on to make a moral argument that it is wrong for an individual to not share wealth and/or property with those less fortunate. This, they argue, then justifies some degree of forced confiscation and redistribution.

The obvious problem with this moral argument is that it takes a moral decision away from the individual by forcing compliance with someone else's very un-individualized decision. Allow me to illustrate with an example. If an old lady with a walker needs to cross a busy street, it seems the right thing to do to help her across if you are able. That is a moral and charitable decision. Now what if someone else orders you to stop whatever you're doing and help her? Are you now doing what is morally correct if it wasn't your decision? What about the person who ordered you? Do they know for sure that there may not be some reason you shouldn't help, like maybe you're having a heart attack or stroke and need to call 911 and wait for an ambulance? It doesn't need to be that serious of an obstacle of course. There are many others of a lesser nature, some obvious obstacles and some more subjective, but the point is it is best to allow you to make the decision yourself.

Anyone who, believing they know what's best for you or society, who then uses the force of law to make you participate, and thinks they are morally justified is walking through a figurative field of land mines. The mines are of a logical and ethical nature. Can you build a moral society out of amoral rule followers? Is it ethical to make someone act charitably? Even if you aren't technically steeling their wealth and property from them with redistributive government policies, aren't you at least stealing their opportunity to truly act charitably?

For a more pointed discussion of the moral aspects of this see my June 19^th entry The Heresy Of Social Justice .

More to the point of individual liberty and dignity, collectivism's assertion of a greater common good gives it undue justification to run over the individual. There is no such thing as a good, at least as determined by human means, that can be clearly said to be so much more important than another good, that it justifies forcing any individual to sacrifice theirs for it. If there was, then we should all seek some great enlightened group of people to direct us in the details of our lives, and history should already be replete with great societies who found such leaders and followed them to their betterment, but that is not the case.

History instead is full of examples of how whenever a nation or society has sought some higher goal, some greater good, some common good at the expense of individual liberty or dignity, that nation has ultimately left a legacy of horror and suffering. This is because whenever we as human beings pretend that our ideals and best understandings of the divine are greater than the individual or equal to God, we become monstrous fools. We forget or never think to ask this basic question If no two of us can always see everything the same way, how can any one of us be worthy to make decisions for the rest of us? We fail to recognize that someone else may see something differently than we do, and when we do, we fail to respect them as a human being separate from ourselves.

Many have rightly argued that just because the Nazi's philosophy was a combination of Social Darwinism and Collectivism does not mean all followers of these things are ready and willing to send millions to death camps. They also rightly argue that it insults the memories of those who survived such atrocities to suggest such, but it also insults their memories to pretend that it was a group of non-human monsters who did this, and not real human beings like ourselves.

Let us not just look at the holocaust which is so painful and awful a memory that it's hard for us to accept it happened, though we must. How about the aftermath of the French Revolution as described so graphically in Tale Of Two Cities. Groups of people, especially when they see themselves as in line with their societies in general are capable of horrors against individuals that they could never consider as individuals. Yes, let's put that more personally. We are capable of these horrors whenever we allow ourselves to be convinced that we are part of a group that by virtue of being a group has some common good that supersedes what some individuals may see as good or precious to them.

“Ridiculous!”, some may say, and I can see their likely point. What about national sovereignty and laws against thievery and sociopathic behavior? Are they not examples of a common good superseding some individual's perception of good? No, those are examples of lesser evils, not common or greater goods. That's a very important distinction that many who argue for collectivism miss. The choice between two evils is some times necessary for a society, for such situations happen, some wars for example, but the choice between goods is never a necessary choice for a society. Good by its definition neither harms by its presence or absence. For a government to make any decision for an individual that it doesn't need to could be the simplest functional definition of tyranny.

Other recent masks are Communism, Socialism, Progressivism, Fascism, and Absolute Monarchies. I'd consider throwing in Corporatism as I believe it is yet another mask of the same thing, but explaining that may require an article unto itself. As different as these things may seem to be from each other, even to the point that their adherents kill each other at times, they are all at fault for the same reason from the individual liberty perspective. They all depend on the invention of the the common greater good to justify running over the individual. Yes, even absolute monarchies justify their power ultimately with a common greater good argument. They rule for the sake of their nation's people and that their power was absolute was justified as being in their people's best interest. The divine right argument may seem at first to be different but essentially it says God decided it was in the best interest of the people that a given monarch rule them.

One could also follow the money, so to speak, to see this same point. With a mere formal exception for Fascism, not a functional one, all property and wealth in a nation under these systems is ultimately that of the nation. Individuals may be allowed to operate to an extent as though it's there's, but given the perceived needs of some common greater good anything and everything can be taken from an individual. Whether one says the wealth and property belongs to the people, the nation, or the crown it's all the same insult from an individual liberty perspective. It is also all the same essential false argument, that some common greater good exists.

The Ancient Struggle

And so the ancient struggle goes on. It's very ironic, if not out right perverse, that Progressives, Socialists, and other collectivists assume the mantle of human progress and accuse people like myself of wanting to “turn back”, as one President Obama has taken to putting it. It is after all those like myself that work towards the maximizing of individual liberty who fight against the tyranny and horrors that inevitably result when people like him use governmental power to advance what they think is best for us. We are the only ones actually pointing the way forward, not him.

>> Notations <<

* “ we would have taken the better option between extinction and survival as something less than human”, should not be taken as an argument for euthanasia since the measure of what it means to be fully human is not in our physical state of being, but in that we endeavor to do the best we can with whatever we have and can ethically obtain.