Had a conversation with a neighbor recently about personal values. I mentioned my involvement with a nonprofit devoted to building community, and what I meant by that phrase.
My neighbor sort of huffed at me, and said, in an accusatory tone - I thought you were a libertarian? (As if the two ideas were incompatible.)
I responded - As long as someone's grand idea is voluntary and doesn't have hurtful, unexpected consequences, I will probably be good with it. If a bunch of people want to start a socialist-inspired commune, and sign-ups and resignations are voluntary, I can't see the problem.
Oh, said the neighbor, and she sort of squinted at me. Then we talked about important stuff, like our favorite, late-season, pollinator flowers.
Beautiful. The enemies of human freedom are too busy falsely characterizing us to get it. The ones who start the lies know they're lying, but the rest just assume we are okay with living on an island without community or cooperation.
I find the same attitudes among people who identify as classical liberal and libertarian and who I would not categorize as enemies of human freedom. Meaning any approach to how humans interact, even voluntary, which implies that communitarian ideas have value is met with contempt.
To dig up an old cliche, one of my best friends is an avowed socialist, as his preferred philosophy - but ONLY if voluntary. We have good talks.
This is a bit of a cliche, but it holds up: in a libertarian/voluntaryist/ancap/anarchist-without-adjectives system, you would be perfectly free to establish a socialist commune, provided it was voluntary of course. The same cannot be said vice versa.
Good job Max...well done. And while you might likely be expressing the sentiment of the majority... we do not have the Mic...and the powers that be (Ed. Media, Movies) will smother this for the power and patronage of their masters.
As a 'rugged individualist' myself, I have come to realize that individualism is largely a myth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't virtually all great human achievements accomplished as a group or collective? I'd be open to any example of an individual building something of value or of substance to society. I would argue that all great civilizations have done so by harmonizing strong individuals, working within a collective to achieve great things for the common good. Synergy baby!
One common thing that entrepreneurs, who are radical individualists, have to learn is how to build and lead teams; if they are to succeed. I see this all the time in small/medium/large businesses, and I have had to learn this myself, which has not been easy, but I'm getting there as a leader.
The individual human is vulnerable and weak, and it is to the advantage of an oppressor to divide people into the most atomized level. Our superpower is in the collective human organism (both in creative and destructive ways).
I think what you're getting at here is HOW we organize ourselves, and I agree with the idea of "Gentle individualism," and I think this is the piece we need to refine. I think this is why our current system is failing: the individual is in trouble, and not even close to being sovereign. Being a sovereign individual is incredibly difficult, and even though it is still pretty achievable in the uSa today, the pitfalls are abundant and very alluring.
What I'm interested in is how relatively sovereign individuals can first be cultivated and, from there, form alliances and work together for the common good, in the pursuit of benefiting each individual through communitarian action and agency. A recursive action of Individual -> Communitas -> Unividual.
So, in the history of ideas, individualism is to be contrasted with collectivism, not community. In other words, individualists don't want to live as slaves or subjects. It doesn't mean they don't want to collaborate, form communities, or work as a "collective" for common goals. So, no, I wouldn't say that individualism is a myth, unless one accepts the definition of individualism propagated by collectivists. That's why I totally join here: "What I'm interested in is how relatively sovereign individuals can first be cultivated and, from there, form alliances and work together for the common good, in the pursuit of benefiting each individual through communitarian action and agency."
OK, so it's a semantic thing. But I can tell you it's a real thing too. These semantics confuse terms IMO. Collectivism should not be equated with state-owned production and redistribution, IMO. Either way, some forces want to keep the masses as the "milk cows" on either end of this dichotomy. The road to serfdom is a crowded one.
In common usage, “communitarianism” is regarded as a form of collectivism in contrast to individualism and is understood to stress the importance of families and voluntary associations. Hence, it seems to be a benign form of collectivism, unlike the usual authoritarian kinds.
Agreed, generally. I like my Alastair MacIntyre, for example. My aim is to wrest the term back from the critics of classical liberalism who went too far, arguing that liberalism and community are incompatible in certain areas and who seek to place too many limits on markets and voluntary association.
For most of the time humans have existed, they lived in hunter gatherer societies, most of which can be classified as collectivist. I understand that such societies typically consisted of fewer than 50 individuals. In relatively small collectivist societies, individuals know and tend to care about each other, and each producer can see how his input contributes to the well-being of others. However, much larger collectivist societies tend to malfunction because they consist of individuals who are unable to care for the multitude of unseen and unknown other individuals. Furthermore, only the rare producer can observe the value of his contribution to the group. Most could quit working and enjoy leisure time without noticeably affecting anyone's prosperity. But if numerous individuals stop producing, ultimately people will begin to starve. To prevent that outcome, either economic collectivism must be abandoned, or some powerful authority must emerge to force the unemployed to produce. For that reason, large scale collectivist societies tend to be authoritarian.
That's an interesting article. Apparently, there are various reasons many people are attracted to collectivism. I can think of others your article didn't mention. One possibility is that many people find family life appealing and think it can be scaled to large societies. Some others are (1) the desire for security offered by social support networks, (2) a sense of belonging to a group, (3) a desire to avoid interpersonal competition, (4) a desire to avoid personal responsibility, and (5) an aversion to feeling isolated. The philosophical basis of collectivism seems to be the tendency to think of people as groups instead of as individuals, which can lead one to favor or oppose people on account of their race, sex, or other group identity. The chief motive for political and economic collectivism appears to be what I call the collectivist theory of justice, according to which society is analogous to the body of an organism, and individuals are analogous to the cells making up that body. For the survival of the organism, nutrients must be distributed more or less equally to the individual cells. There's no obvious reason to favor some cells over others. On this view, values and disvalues should be distributed more or less equally. That accounts for the desire to redistribute wealth equally and to go easy on punishing criminals.
Had a conversation with a neighbor recently about personal values. I mentioned my involvement with a nonprofit devoted to building community, and what I meant by that phrase.
My neighbor sort of huffed at me, and said, in an accusatory tone - I thought you were a libertarian? (As if the two ideas were incompatible.)
I responded - As long as someone's grand idea is voluntary and doesn't have hurtful, unexpected consequences, I will probably be good with it. If a bunch of people want to start a socialist-inspired commune, and sign-ups and resignations are voluntary, I can't see the problem.
Oh, said the neighbor, and she sort of squinted at me. Then we talked about important stuff, like our favorite, late-season, pollinator flowers.
Beautiful. The enemies of human freedom are too busy falsely characterizing us to get it. The ones who start the lies know they're lying, but the rest just assume we are okay with living on an island without community or cooperation.
I find the same attitudes among people who identify as classical liberal and libertarian and who I would not categorize as enemies of human freedom. Meaning any approach to how humans interact, even voluntary, which implies that communitarian ideas have value is met with contempt.
To dig up an old cliche, one of my best friends is an avowed socialist, as his preferred philosophy - but ONLY if voluntary. We have good talks.
Thanks again for this thoughtful post.
This is a bit of a cliche, but it holds up: in a libertarian/voluntaryist/ancap/anarchist-without-adjectives system, you would be perfectly free to establish a socialist commune, provided it was voluntary of course. The same cannot be said vice versa.
Exactly. This is such a difficult point to have penetrate the Zeitgeist.
Good job Max...well done. And while you might likely be expressing the sentiment of the majority... we do not have the Mic...and the powers that be (Ed. Media, Movies) will smother this for the power and patronage of their masters.
As a 'rugged individualist' myself, I have come to realize that individualism is largely a myth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't virtually all great human achievements accomplished as a group or collective? I'd be open to any example of an individual building something of value or of substance to society. I would argue that all great civilizations have done so by harmonizing strong individuals, working within a collective to achieve great things for the common good. Synergy baby!
One common thing that entrepreneurs, who are radical individualists, have to learn is how to build and lead teams; if they are to succeed. I see this all the time in small/medium/large businesses, and I have had to learn this myself, which has not been easy, but I'm getting there as a leader.
The individual human is vulnerable and weak, and it is to the advantage of an oppressor to divide people into the most atomized level. Our superpower is in the collective human organism (both in creative and destructive ways).
I think what you're getting at here is HOW we organize ourselves, and I agree with the idea of "Gentle individualism," and I think this is the piece we need to refine. I think this is why our current system is failing: the individual is in trouble, and not even close to being sovereign. Being a sovereign individual is incredibly difficult, and even though it is still pretty achievable in the uSa today, the pitfalls are abundant and very alluring.
What I'm interested in is how relatively sovereign individuals can first be cultivated and, from there, form alliances and work together for the common good, in the pursuit of benefiting each individual through communitarian action and agency. A recursive action of Individual -> Communitas -> Unividual.
So, in the history of ideas, individualism is to be contrasted with collectivism, not community. In other words, individualists don't want to live as slaves or subjects. It doesn't mean they don't want to collaborate, form communities, or work as a "collective" for common goals. So, no, I wouldn't say that individualism is a myth, unless one accepts the definition of individualism propagated by collectivists. That's why I totally join here: "What I'm interested in is how relatively sovereign individuals can first be cultivated and, from there, form alliances and work together for the common good, in the pursuit of benefiting each individual through communitarian action and agency."
OK, so it's a semantic thing. But I can tell you it's a real thing too. These semantics confuse terms IMO. Collectivism should not be equated with state-owned production and redistribution, IMO. Either way, some forces want to keep the masses as the "milk cows" on either end of this dichotomy. The road to serfdom is a crowded one.
In common usage, “communitarianism” is regarded as a form of collectivism in contrast to individualism and is understood to stress the importance of families and voluntary associations. Hence, it seems to be a benign form of collectivism, unlike the usual authoritarian kinds.
Agreed, generally. I like my Alastair MacIntyre, for example. My aim is to wrest the term back from the critics of classical liberalism who went too far, arguing that liberalism and community are incompatible in certain areas and who seek to place too many limits on markets and voluntary association.
For most of the time humans have existed, they lived in hunter gatherer societies, most of which can be classified as collectivist. I understand that such societies typically consisted of fewer than 50 individuals. In relatively small collectivist societies, individuals know and tend to care about each other, and each producer can see how his input contributes to the well-being of others. However, much larger collectivist societies tend to malfunction because they consist of individuals who are unable to care for the multitude of unseen and unknown other individuals. Furthermore, only the rare producer can observe the value of his contribution to the group. Most could quit working and enjoy leisure time without noticeably affecting anyone's prosperity. But if numerous individuals stop producing, ultimately people will begin to starve. To prevent that outcome, either economic collectivism must be abandoned, or some powerful authority must emerge to force the unemployed to produce. For that reason, large scale collectivist societies tend to be authoritarian.
You might enjoy this, John.
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-origins-of-envy
That's an interesting article. Apparently, there are various reasons many people are attracted to collectivism. I can think of others your article didn't mention. One possibility is that many people find family life appealing and think it can be scaled to large societies. Some others are (1) the desire for security offered by social support networks, (2) a sense of belonging to a group, (3) a desire to avoid interpersonal competition, (4) a desire to avoid personal responsibility, and (5) an aversion to feeling isolated. The philosophical basis of collectivism seems to be the tendency to think of people as groups instead of as individuals, which can lead one to favor or oppose people on account of their race, sex, or other group identity. The chief motive for political and economic collectivism appears to be what I call the collectivist theory of justice, according to which society is analogous to the body of an organism, and individuals are analogous to the cells making up that body. For the survival of the organism, nutrients must be distributed more or less equally to the individual cells. There's no obvious reason to favor some cells over others. On this view, values and disvalues should be distributed more or less equally. That accounts for the desire to redistribute wealth equally and to go easy on punishing criminals.
Yeah, some want to replace the family with the state, which is even more bizarre.