2014-03-24

We're All Individualists - Until We Aren't

"Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good."

Robert A. Heinlein.

Individualism does not mean, to me anyway, to think of oneself as a means to an end. Being an individualist doesn't absolve you of your responsibilities to your family and the community at large. Au contraire, it demands more of you to be a good neighbor. The argument of individualism, thus, is if the individual is weak and is not their own moral agent, then there is no strong community as defined by collectivism. This is probably why so many government programs designed to help actually falter or fail made ultimately worse by enabling the meek.




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