Monday, January 18, 2010

The Triumph of Individualism

The common good.

The will of the people.

Unity and equality.

The slogans pour out of the mouths of politicians constantly, all claiming to hold the public's best interests at heart. And what's wrong with that? After all, politicians are society's "public servants". The problem with these sayings is that they are all rooted in a common philosophy called "collectivism". Collectivism is the belief that individual right is not an end to itself; rather, individual rights only exist to serve the broader society, or "collective". The group is the lowest common denominator, not the separate people that form the makeup of that group. As Dr. Andrew Bernstein said, "Collectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that society as a whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value."

If your internal fire alarm went off when you read this, congratulate yourself. Collectivism sounds good on the outside, as it allegedly serves to benefit the majority of people. The core, however, is rotten. Collectivism is not benevolent, and it is not moral. Consider these quotes by some outstanding gentlemen:

"The unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual."

"We must abolish the cult of the individual, once and for all!"

This first quote is from Nazi Fuhrer Adolph Hitler, the second from Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev; these two men followed the collectivist ideal to the letter. The Jews? The German leadership and people perceived them to be a threat to "the group", in this case the German nation and the Nazi Party. It didn't matter that they were individually innocent, and that no Jew had hurt any German any more than a member of some other racial group. All that mattered was their collective, and the Jews were different. How about the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union? They had done nothing morally wrong, but they were richer than the other dirt-poor peasants of the country; for the greater good to be served, their property had to be either distributed evenly, and their lives had to be shattered forever to ensure that they would never reach a higher status again.

Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union extensively cracked down on dissent. They had to in order to cement unity within their countries, because any dissent meant that there was something different in the group; the group was no longer the lowest common denominator. Collectivism could not be practiced if there was even a minor difference of agreement in the group. Dissent means individualism, and individualism is the enemy of collectivism.

Speaking of individualism, what exactly does individualism entail? Individualism is cemented in the principle of the right to self-ownership: you own yourself and your property, and no human being can take that away from you. The right to self-ownership logically leads to a second principle: the principle of non-aggression, which states that anyone may do anything they wish with their lives and their property, so long as they do not infringe on anyone else's lives or property. It is the political version of the Golden Rule: do unto others.

This is not a promotion of anarchism, nor a condemnation of teamwork. It is only involuntary "teamwork" that I write against, for in this is rooted coercion and force. Individualism is the only way to secure a free society; the only alternative is collectivism, and collectivism can only lead down the road to tyranny and injustice. There can be no true freedom and prosperity in a system in which everyone is in constant violation of each other's rights.

Individualism is responsible for the innovation and liberty that has created so much for those countries that follow it, while collectivist nations are consistently found in poverty and oppression. History warns us of this: deep into the past, individuals consistently surrendered themselves to their tribes/cities/kingdoms; their collectives. People reasoned that in order to ensure survival, they needed to band together into a strong group and clamp down on individuality. However, this merely mired those primitive people in the mud of the Dark Ages. It was only once society took the step of allowing the individuals to act freely in the late Middle Ages that civilization began to flourish. Do not listen to the so-called progressives who call for the world to return to collectivism. Collectivism is the philosophy of the past; individualism is the bold new leap into the future.

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