Why Individualism Is Important

By: Luke Duffy

To remain an individual is truly an arduous task. Whether it’s sports, politics or even electronic devices, everyone has their team. In many ways, as humans, we’re predisposed towards it. Throughout our evolution and history, community and cooperation has allowed our species to not only survive but also to thrive and innovate. And for many of us today, with the idea of our daily survival an afterthought, this same inclination leads us to fulfill our more emotional or mental longings. Being part of a team fulfills our desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, thus giving life an added purpose. As well as our need for emotional stimulation, which comes in the form of vicariously experiencing our side’s successes. While there are too many examples of this behavior to count that are completely innocuous, as with most human urges there is a certain level of malevolence that should not be ignored.

Once placed on a team, it’s far too easy for that team to become part of that person’s identity. The individual and his or her chosen group become one and the same, interchangeable. And from the wickedly funny results of the Candid Camera episode “Face the Rear” to the much more sinister findings of Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment, there is no lack of evidence showing the predisposition of humans to conform to those around them. This combination of self-identification and conformity leads to lazy and preprogrammed thinking, e.g. “I am Republican, and Republicans are pro-life, therefore I am pro-life.” It’s an incredibly easy and insidious mindset to fall into, not only does it allow us to presuppose judgments and idea about others, it allows us to presuppose about ourselves. Research and investigation into any number of specific issues becomes unnecessary, as we allow our group to choose our position for us.

Perhaps the most concerning consequence of this mindset is the propensity it builds to ignore or mitigate faults and criticism. Any critique of the group becomes not just a criticism of its ideas but also a personal attack, and so the appraisal must either be ignored or invalided. This applies not just to attacks on the group as a whole, but also to all individual members of said group. As the group represents each individual and each individual represents the group.

You need not look further than many of the responses to the death of Fidel Castro to find prime examples of this behavior. Castro took control of Cuba in 1959 after successfully leading a revolution against, then president, Fulgencio Batista. He was the formal leader of Cuba, under a number of different titles, until 2008 when health issues caused him to officially pass his title to his brother Raul Castro. His reign oversaw the intense suppression of freedom of speech, press, and assembly. In numerous cases, Castro chose to eschew due process in favor of immediate imprisonment or execution for his political opponents. He created labor camps that forced, primarily homosexual, men to work eleven hours a day of hard labor, with the hope that it would “rehabilitate” them. To end Castro’s list of atrocities here is doing an injustice to those forced to live under his rule, however I believe I’ve made my point.

It’s almost unthinkable that the death of such a man, who caused roughly ten percent of his country’s population to flee in exile, would be eulogized with kind words and fond memories. However, Fidel Castro wasn’t just a ruthless dictator; he was a communist ruthless dictator, standing as one of the last true opponents of capitalism and private property. And so for many who identify as part of the leftwing, it was a time not for joy and celebration, both of which are occurring in Miami among families and relatives of those who lived under Castro’s rule, but one for nostalgic reflection. Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein said of Castro, “[He] was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of the empire.” British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn followed suit saying that Castro’s legacy would be remembered for his focus on education and healthcare. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had perhaps the most cringe-inducing eulogy when he referred to Castro as a “controversial figure,” before praising “his tremendous dedication to the Cuban people.” Trudeau’s comments led to the creation of #TrudeauEulogies, a series of mocking tweets applying Trudeau’s myopic praise to a number of other historical dictators, which I highly recommend reading.

This is the exact blind partisanship that we must fight against as proponents of liberty and the value of the individual. It’s important that we highlight the hypocrisy that such partisanship breeds, both in others and in ourselves. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore flaws or shortcomings in individuals, regardless of if they support our ideology. And although we may call ourselves many names and identify as many different groups, such as libertarian, classical liberal, minarchist, anarchocapitalist, objectivist and many others. We are really just individual who share a certain perspective about the world. And in our fight against collectivism, we must not allow ourselves to succumb to its most dangerous tendencies