Individualism versus war. Obviously, individualism is
something heavily espoused in the libertarian tradition, just
individual right to life, liberty, and property.
I would argue that war is largely the extreme opposite of
that, where life, liberty, and property is being rampantly
violated. So who is the author of this
essay, and and what does he do to unpack that dichotomy between
individualism and war? The author is Scott Horton, who
is the director of the Libertarian Institute.
My boss over there. And when he's talking about
individualism, a lot of people might think individualism is
when people do things by themselves.
Collectivism is when people do things together.
That is not an actual explanation of what the
individualism is. Individualism is people
cooperating in the web of society based on individual
consent. Collectivism is when some people
have the right to coerce others under the guise of helping the
nation, helping the race, helping the poor for the greater
good, etcetera. The reason this is important is
because if you are doing something alone, you're just
reading a book in your house. You probably didn't write the
book, you probably didn't chop down the trees to make the
pages. The author probably stole words
that other people. Came up with and put them in the
book. You're probably not generating
your own light. You're probably not generating
your own electricity or air conditioning.
You probably bought the house from someone else who built it.
Even at the point of doing something alone, we're
constantly cooperating. That is a true understanding of
what individualism is. So with that understanding,
Scott Horton says war is ultimately about collectivism.
During crisis, individuality fades in favor of team effort.
During vital and conflict, particularly between
governments, the world becomes especially, it seems for
Americans, a giant bloody football game.
Our team first, theirs, us first them.
Good verse evil go team go. So his thesis is that the only
reason the average person is able to justify something like
Operation Meeting House bombing of I think 100,000 civilians in
Tokyo. Japan.
This would have been in March of 1945, as deadly as Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. So if you know about it, but
they will immediately come back with well, they started it.
They had Pearl Harbor, as if the people in this geographical
area, mostly civilians, had any part in the decision for the
Japanese regime of Emperor Hirohito to attack Pearl Harbor
four years earlier. But they have put them in the
same BLOB. It is literally like me going up
to an American and arresting them and saying, well, Joe Biden
on August 29th of 2021 murdered 10 civilians in Kabul,
Afghanistan. Seven of them were children.
So I'm arresting America for what America did.
Well, America is a group and not everyone in.
A demographic is responsible for the actions.
It's the equivalent or a general understanding is that each
person is part of a number of different collectives.
So I would be part of the male collective, the collective who's
in their 20s. I'd be an American who's in
Arizona. I would be part of the
podcasting collective. You can constantly generalize
people and then hold everyone responsible for what a
microscopic number of people do. So because people are able to
1st buy into collectivism, Scott Horton says the most dangerous
extent of this thing of this assumption is that it leads to
literal mass murder. And they still managed to call
us the ideology of greed for advocating voluntary exchange as
they defend indiscriminate mass murder.
So he says this is the underlying issue with so much of
what we see. The reason I chose this one is
because it is a timeless message.
It's something I wish people would have read in the First
World War, the 30 Years War, the Spanish American War.
It's so vitally important because it really gets to the
heart. Of of what the issue is even
today, you'll see people say just ridiculous nonsense.
Well, Xi Jinping is a terrible person, so we might have to go
to war with China even though want a former Republican.
Richard Nixon shook hands with Chairman Mao and Henry Kissinger
shook hands with Chairman Mao. But we can't talk to President
Xi. He is just absolutely evil.
The US had a formal alliance with, who many say is like a
terrific president, Franklin Roosevelt.
Had an alliance with Joseph Stalin, but they're like, oh,
but we can't talk to Vladimir Putin.
He did bad things in Ukraine. Stalin murdered far more people
in Ukraine in the holiday more, and then after that they formed
the Allied alliance. So all of these ridiculous
things, all of how smart people can make such ridiculous
justifications that are blatantly irrational is because
they first believe in something called collectivism.
That's why I think Scott Horton's essay is important.