I’ve come to see that nothing could be further from
the truth. Man is a social creature by nature – his natural state is one of
mingling with his own kind. The loner
out in the wilderness is being led by an instinct that is something other than human. He is more akin to the male leopard (mating
season notwithstanding). Well, so long
as Wild Man is hurting no one, I wish him every success out there.
Meanwhile, there’s a heap of us constantly rubbing
elbows and trying to get along. Isn’t it
funny that we even have to try, given
our social nature? And that is what
separates us from, say, a herd of water buffalo (mating season
notwithstanding). Friction between
humans, who are naturally social, speaks to the reality of the individual.
I taught preschool for 15 years and recall a saying
we had among the staff: “We know children, you know your child.” It spoke to the facts that we, the Early
Childhood educators, were experts on children in general, and that nobody knew an individual child better than the
parents. This view of things made it
very easy for the staff to work with parents in a team effort to meet the needs
of an individual child; to help the parents see us as a resource for them, and
to remind the staff that the parents of a particular child were the real
experts on that child. Combining general knowledge of people with very specific knowledge of a person seemed to be the most effective way to deal with any
issues a child was dealing with. In the
end, the key to a happy, harmonious room full of 2- and 3-year-olds came down
to dealing with and respecting each child as an individual. The Quacker Room was a very happy place, and
its teachers were very tired and underpaid, but on the ball.
I believe the collectivist/individualist conflict is
an unnecessary one, because it paints people as being one way or the other
(lone individuals or a member of a herd), yet we are neither, because we are
both. I think it goes back to what I
said in the last post: who do we fear the most?
The assholes who run the government, or the assholes who run the
corporations? I say, fear them all! Why leave some of the assholes out? Why be biased? Regulate them all!
When the Left calls for regulation of the banks and
corporations and the Right calls for limited government (which is just another
term for regulation), what are they really asking for? Protection.
Protection for…people. So, the
motivation for these calls for protection comes from compassion, from
charitable hearts. It’s people caring
about other people – on both sides of the political spectrum.
There is no reason that a call for limited
government must go hand-in-hand with finding the poor to be despicable and
undeserving of help. In fact, many who
espouse limited government follow a religion that gave birth to the concepts of
hospitals, full-time charitable organizations, orphanages, and universities (if
my research serves me well). They are
some of the most hospitable and charitable people I have ever met, who have, if
anything, a soft spot for the poor. Bear
in mind I’m talking about people I have met personally. These are real people. I’ve seen in the media the same cold-hearted,
self-centered Right that you have, but I’ve never run across those
people in real life. I suppose they’re
out there, but my guess is that they are the minority. I suppose there might be some reason that the
media and politicians would want to magnify that crowd…I don’t know…some reason. As cynical as I am, I still believe in the
basic goodness of people.
Though you know I have left the Christian religion,
I will borrow a teaching from it that I believe we should apply to government
and big business alike, and if we don’t, we will pay a heavy price. Jesus posed the question: “Was Man made for
the Sabbath, or the Sabbath made for Man?” The problem with big government, as is the problem
with big business, is that what began as something created by humans ostensibly
to serve other humans can become something that humans are eventually forced to serve. When this happens, something very fundamental
has surely been turned on its head (see: world history).
When enough individuals start to feel like their purpose in life is to work for, fund,
and be accountable to their government, then that government’s days are
numbered. No one experiences life as “a
group.” Each one experiences their own
life as an individual. He may share
experiences with others, but he lives those experiences within himself. Corporations would reduce us to a faceless
mob whose sole purpose is to produce for the corporation. Governments (which are corporations, after
all) have the same tendency, and we must not lose sight of that fact. And when governments prevail in turning their
citizens into one giant sweatshop, the results are never prosperity for the
poor, peace, and harmony. It’s just the
opposite.
As I said at the outset, these are the ramblings of
THIS libertarian, neither on the Right nor the Left. I’m sure I’ve left some holes in what I’ve
been trying to share, and I apologize if I haven’t delivered something that is
worth thinking about, as I had hoped.
I’ll try to sum it all up by saying that I happen to
think we (the general population) are naturally
united in our humanity, that we are naturally
compassionate and charitable, and that it is the self-centered interests who we
allow to run the show that artificially
divide us and preoccupy us and weaken us, who show us the dreaded face of the
fanatical, cold-hearted Right and the smug self-righteousness of the godless
Left with no moral compass. If we could
all just move the curtain to the side and look past the smoke and mirrors, I
think we would all see a bunch of super rich bastards pushing buttons and
pulling levers and holding shiny objects in front of us, mesmerizing us and
causing us to walk through life in a stupor as, in the words of George Carlin,
“obedient workers.” Did I say I was
cynical?
