It’s no secret that leftists reserve their greatest scorn, derision and vitriol for people who, by demographic category, are supposed to side with them but choose not to. Pro-life women and black conservatives are two of the more prominent categories subject to this treatment. It can be puzzling to consider why liberals would be so especially brutal to people like Clarence Thomas, the only black member of the current Supreme Court, in the face of their asserting themselves as champions for minority advancement. We can, however, understand this seeming dichotomy if we contextualize it within the framework of collectivism and the statist mindset.
Statist social theory doesn’t show regard for the individual. In the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock explained his self-sacrifice as “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” This variant of the utilitarian argument posed by Jeremy Bentham “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong” might be applicable if we accept a perversion from free action to coercion. I’ll set aside the philosophical arguments for and against utilitarianism – the point here is that this mindset provides the explanation for liberal antipathy for the Clarence Thomases of the country.
In embracing this statist mindset, an individual’s first loyalty is expected to be to his identity group, and individualism is only to be expressed within the boundaries of that group’s advancement and benefit (as perceived and specified by that group’s self-appointed champions). For example, the Left considers affirmative action as an irrefutable benefit to blacks, so any black person who speaks against affirmative action is perceived as speaking against his own interests and his own people. Nowhere in this is there room for debate regarding whether affirmative action IS a benefit, or whether it’s a benefit to all blacks, or merely to some at the greater detriment to others. The issue is considered a collective one, and it treats the black population either as homogeneous or as a group where benefit is measured solely in the aggregate.
Thus, anyone who goes “off the reservation” harms the group, and the group is the only thing that matters. Individualism is fine and dandy, provided it doesn’t conflict with the group’s benefit. The right to one’s opinion doesn’t matter, because the opinions have already been decided.
Some extend this mindset not only to contrary opinions or beliefs, but to inaction as well. If you’re not an advocate for that which has been declared to be for the group’s benefit, you’re a free-rider. This is a common theme in the gay community, where some argue that choosing not to “come out” hinders acceptance of gays by society and burdens those who have. The validity of this argument rests on the question of what’s more important: the individual or the individual’s identity group(s). If you’re of a statist or liberal mind set, it’s more likely you favor the latter.
The free-rider argument is a common attack foisted on successful conservative blacks like Clarence Thomas. Some have argued that it’s wrong and hypocritical of him to argue against affirmative action, because he benefited from it. This argument, again, subordinates the individual to the collective, but more importantly, it presumes that affirmative action irrefutably benefited him AND that it irrefutably benefits blacks in the aggregate. Thomas has argued the opposite, that affirmative action does more harm than good, but as I noted before, opinions don’t matter because the correct ones have already been declared.
This explains the Left’s extreme anger at those who are supposed to think one way but actually think another. While it’s certainly true that both the Left and the Right are dogmatic in their views regarding certain hot-button issues, it is the Left’s collectivist mindset that engenders the extreme anger at heresy and apostasy. “Race-traitor” language, when found on the Right, is the stuff of extremists that most of society shuns. However, similar language emanating from the Left is embraced and repeated.
Bentham’s utilitarian basis for morality may be coopted by the collectivists, but they’d be ignoring the crucial difference between free will and coercion that’s vital to any discussion about morality. In other words, you don’t make someone moral by forcing him to act against his will, nor are you moral when you do so. Any notion that collectivist thought occupies a higher moral ground than respect for the primacy of the individual is meritless posturing.
So, next time you are shocked or dismayed by an angry leftist’s rants against a minority, or a woman, or a member of some other aggrieved group that speaks contrary to liberal orthodoxy, understand that the source of that anger lies in dehumanizing and subordinating that individual to the group to whom loyalty is owed and expected.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters