DOWNSIDE OF INDIVIDUALISM

Fredrick Douglass, An Outstanding Individual. Link here to excellent article. 

The unappealing tactics of the Far Left in the U.S. have driven many rational people to The Center Right (now increasingly including Classical Liberals) and Far Right. Senator Bernie Sanders has taken a lot of criticism from more moderate Americans for setting light to the new bonfire of Marxism seen on The Left. Collectivism, communism, centrally enforced socialism ... these have been embraced bizarrely by many Black Americans and LGBTQ+ Americans. None of these philosophies in practice have respected the worth of minorities. They have persecuted them.

The swing of more and more mainstream Americans to The Right comes with a downside. As exemplified by NRA extremists, individualism in America can revert to embracing a form of cowboy-town anarchy. Unyielding adherence to a Constitution written when the majority of Americans farmed on the edges of wilderness can be nearsighted. The U.S. of modern prosperity and relative security developed in large part from cohesion and cooperation through national government. 

Physics teaches that each action causes an opposing and equal reaction. It is an interesting correlation with the ancient Buddhist concept of cause and effect. In Physics and Chemistry, equilibrium is the eventual balance between opposing forces. In Buddhist terms, this is The Middle Way.

Jefferson and others cautioned that political stagnation over time would necessitate revolution. This was based in the long history of aristocratic (elitist) intransigence in the face of inevitable change. However, the U.S. republic has proven more dynamic than anticipated. Despite the extreme individualist gospels of people like Ayn Rand,  Americans have pulled together to keep their nation strong while maintaining their individual freedoms. Balance has ultimately prevailed. Perhaps this is one of the greatest American achievements.

The faceless collectivism of some ideologies, like Communism and Islam, is absolutely anti-American. It is also absolutely in opposition to gay rights and women's right to control their bodies. The Constitutional separation of Church (Religion) and State by our 18th-century founders was rooted in centuries of collective punishment by ruling proponents of reformist Protestantism and The Spanish Inquisition in Europe. 

Extremism yields extreme counter-extremism. We moderates are trying to maintain our balance on the crux of the see-saw. Some of us who value a civil and intelligent debate over issues are drawn to the more individualist messages of people like Jordan B. Peterson. I am quite certain any intelligent reader or listener will recognize elements of Dr. Peterson's message which are a rather simplistic biological assertions. Perhaps this is his rather well crafted and civilized counter-extremist method after being attacked from the Far Left. Perhaps he really believes we are just a bundle of programmed responses.

In any case, neither pure collectivism nor pure individualism are consistent with human characteristics. Humans are indeed social animals but the intelligent are also conscious of their own individual causes and effects. The American way has been the middle way since the mid 20th century. Nothing in today's heated mainstream political atmosphere actually threatens to veer the national path too far from that middle. The Far Left's nostalgic romance with Marxism and the extreme Libertarian Right's romance with bootstrap individualism will most likely balance each other out. The circus of personality politics is simply another form of entertainment which is unlikely to undermine our republic over the long term.