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2013 November 01
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"The case for a free society rests on individualism. ... Every form of totalitarianism has sought control over the minds of individuals, and has understood that it must first undermine the individual’s confidence in the validity of his own faculties. Remember O’Brien’s speech to Winston Smith in Orwell’s '1984' " |
"The antipode of individualism is collectivism, which subordinates the individual to the group -- be it the 'community,' the tribe, the race, the proletariat, etc. A person's moral worth is judged by how much he sacrifices himself to the group. [Under collectivism] the more emergencies (and victims) the better, because they provide more opportunity for 'virtue'." |
"Collectivist ethical principle: man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether those 'others' are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant -- the point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others." |
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2013 October 31
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"I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it." |
"Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism. One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge—information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state." |
"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society." |
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2013 October 30
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"It is collectivism that is the unrealistic expression of utopian belief systems. In its worst form -- the state -- collectivism is the institutionalized exertion of violence to compel living beings to behave contrary to their natural self-interest inclinations. So strong are the motivations for individual preferences that the state must resort to attacks upon the very nature of life to satisfy the ambitions of those who see others as nothing more than resources to be exploited for such ends." |
"Collectivism is the doctrine that the social collective -- called society, the people, the state, etc. -- has rights, needs, or moral authority above and apart from the individuals who comprise it. We hear this idea continually championed in such familiar platitudes as 'the needs of the people take precedence over the rights of the individual,' 'production for people, not profits,' and 'the common good.'
Collectivism often sounds humane because it stresses the importance of human needs. In reality, it is little more than a rationalization for sacrificing you and me to the desires of others." |
"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men." |
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2013 October 29
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"The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power." |
"The crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those who did, and those who did not, believe that the citizen could -- or should -- be the property of the state." |
"People have often been willing to give up personal identity and join into a collective. Historically, that propensity has usually been very bad news. Collectives tend to be mean, to designate official enemies, to be violent, and to discourage creative, rigorous thought. Fascists, communists, religious cults, criminal 'families' — there has been no end to the varieties of human collectives, but it seems to me that these examples have quite a lot in common. I wonder if some aspect of human nature evolved in the context of competing packs. We might be genetically wired to be vulnerable to the lure of the mob." |
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2013 October 28
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"The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not." |
"If falsehood like truth had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field." |
"The most fluent talkers or the most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers." |
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