Collectivism, “Philosopher-Kings,” and Science Fiction

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

In my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong, I argue that the Real Culture War is oversimplified when it is conceived as being between conservatives and progressives. The Real Culture War pits Individualism versus Collectivism. Individualism is the view that the basic metaphysical unit of social analysis is the individual. Individualism states that human beings have intrinsic value and possess the natural rights to life, liberty, and property. This view was held by the Founding Fathers. Collectivism is the view that the basic metaphysical unit of social analysis is the collective—society. Collectivism states that human beings only have value in virtue of their relationship to the collective. This view was held by Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as well as American leaders Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Al Gore, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Varieties of Collectivism include Communism, Fascism, Progressivism, Environmentalism, Neoconservatism, Racism, Religionism, Corporatism, and Labor Unionism. New strains of Collectivism on a grander scale are now growing in the form of Centralized Banking and Globalism.

Collectivism is often mischaracterized as something akin to a hive mind. However, the truth is that Collectivism is hierarchical. Guiding collectivized societies are always Philosopher-Kings (PKs)—self-appointed elites who exempt themselves from the rules of the collective. PKs are—in the words of talented artist and editor Stephanie Schmidt (who is responsible for the beautiful book cover pictured above)—“selfish individualists”; they regard themselves as inherently valuable yet view most others as possessing value only as part of the collective. For most of history, individuals suffered within collectivist societies—under tyrants who assumed power through violence, under nepotistic monarchs who justified their power as God’s will, under ideologue technocrats who promised utopia but delivered economic ruin and oppression, and under militaristic nationalists who turned entire nations into war machines and entire populations into cannon fodder.

The true nature of these Collectivist PKs has been skillfully revealed in several works of science fiction. One of the most apt attitudes of the PK was stated by George Orwell in his chilling parable Animal Farm: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” The rules in Collectivist societies are meant to be followed by the masses, but not by the elites. These rules were never applied to the nobles, the elite members of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union or Maoist China, the elite members of the Nazi Party in the Third Reich, or to the leaders and cronies of any Collectivist government. This is why Al Gore believes that it is acceptable for him to fly around the world on jets and live in a mansion that runs on fossil fuels. Worrying about “carbon footprint” is our problem, not his.

One of the most fearsome and memorable Collectivist life forms in science fiction are the Borg from the “Star Trek” universe. The Borg are a hybrid collectivist race of cybernetic humanoids. While during their earliest appearances the Borg were presented as being a pure form of Collectivism with no hierarchical arrangement, the writers later introduced the Borg Queen. The Borg Queen is a cybernetic Individual who coordinates the drones in the Borg Collective and brings “order to chaos.” The Borg Queen uses ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ and enjoys a metaphysical and psychological existence that is separate from the rest of the Collective. The Borg Queen—which has been shown to be replaced when a previous Queen dies—leads the Borg in their universal Collectivist goal of adding all intelligent life into their Collective. And destroying that life which cannot be “assimilated.”

An earlier and perhaps even more internationally famous fictional alien Collectivist race are the Daleks from “Doctor Who.” The Daleks are cybernetic organisms consisting of a hateful genetically modified Kaleds from the planet Skaro encased in a robotic tank-like shell that makes them look like angry genocidal trash cans. The Collectivist Daleks—like the Borg—share thoughts in a “hive mind” fashion. Also like the Borg, the Daleks were created by and initially led by an Individual—Davros. Later, the Daleks were led by Dalek Prime—the Dalek Emperor—who was one of the original Daleks and the main leader of the “Revolution” that deposed Davros. Nevertheless, it is possible that the Daleks cannot truly be viewed as a society at all. They can instead be viewed as instantiations of a simple algorithm—“Exterminate!” In essence, the Daleks are more a destructive force than a government or a race. They seek to collectivize all life by destroying it. If they were to succeed and become the only intelligent life remaining in the universe, one could assume that they would then turn on each other, effectively proving to be nothing but an apocalyptic force—more machine than living creature.

Collectivist PKs have been presented in a more modest form in two more recent popular science fiction works. In the popular Hunger Games novels and film adaptations, the PKs of the ruling class do not face possible starvation. Their children are also not forced to compete in the Hunger Games. Similarly, in the recent science fiction/horror film The Purge, the “New Founding Fathers” of the United States have implemented a twelve-hour period each year where the citizens may “release the beast” and purge their primal hatred. During these twelve hours, no crimes that are committed will be prosecuted, and no emergency assistance will be provided by police, fire departments, etc. However, not all Americans are subject to this. “Government officials of ranking 10” have been granted immunity from the Purge. In essence, only the masses need to fear being robbed, raped, or murdered during the Purge. High ranking PKs are hypocritically given protection under the law.

Collectivist PKs seek to collectivize the masses as a means to their own selfish ends. They invariably believe themselves to be superior human beings—i.e. Nietzschean Supermen. Unless and until these PKs are resisted, human beings are enabling the PKs to enslave them.

(For a much more detailed discussion of Collectivist PKs, read my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong. Available now on Amazon in both print and Kindle.)

RFK Jr. and the Burning of Heretics

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

 
In an interview, environmentalist activist and nepotite Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—the son of the man who authorized the FBI to spy on Martin Luther King—responded to a question concerning climate change skeptics by saying: “I wish there were a law you could punish them with. I don’t think there is a law that you can punish those politicians under.” Despite having a J.D., Kennedy seems to be unaware of the First Amendment. Human beings have a natural right to think and speak their opinions. Expressing skepticism concerning scientific views is protected by the First Amendment. Just as a politician or any other human being has a natural right to express skepticism concerning superstring theory in physics, so too does an individual have a natural right to express skepticism toward theories concerning climate change.

Does Kennedy believe that false beliefs should be punished? If not, what makes climate change so special? Why should progressives and socialists who hold clearly discredited economic theories not also be subject to punishment? Belief in Keynesianism leads to government policies which cause untold suffering. Why should Marxists and their fellow travelers not be punished? Why? Because Keynesians, Marxists, and progressives have a natural right to free speech. And so do skeptics of climate change.

Science is not dogmatic. If science is to become less rigorous and more akin to religion, then the entire discipline will suffer. New discoveries and new technologies will become rare as a result. There is simply no such thing as “settled” science. At one time it was unthinkable that Newtonian physics would turn out not to be accurate. However, once the ideas of quantum mechanics had been formulated and tested, Newtonian physics became discredited. Should Einstein and other “heretics” have been punished for their disbelief in the Newtonian orthodoxy? When Big Bang and Steady State theorists were battling it out in the arena of scientific ideas, should the eventual victors have been prepared to punish those whose theory ended up being falsified? 

The First Amendment has historically vigorously defended the natural right to free speech. The defense of unpopular and sometimes disgusting ideas is most important in protecting freedom. There is no need  to defend ideas such as “2 + 2 = 4” or “The United States is good.” The ideas that need protection are ideas such as those present in communism or Nazism. Or fringe ideas such as the belief that the moon landing was a hoax. Even in an age where political correctness is prevalent on both the Neo-Progressive Left and the Neoconservative Right, the First Amendment remains a bastion of defense for free speech. Unlike in much of Western Europe, the United States allows individuals to read Mein Kampf and even organize Neo-Nazi parties. This freedom actually serves to discredit fascistic ideas. Instead of imbuing them with a kind of cachet through censorship and turning them into sexy “forbidden fruit,” allowing such ideas to be fully exposed reveals just how bad they are.

The real reason that Kennedy and other environmentalist collectivists like him seek to censor the speech of climate change skeptics is that they are losing the war of ideas. A June 2014 Pew Research Center poll indicated that 35% of Americans believe that the planet is not warming and another 18% believe that the planet is warming, but that it is due to natural causes and not to human activity. If one cannot convince the public, why not simply silence and bully the opposition? If environmentalists are the ones who actually love and follow science, then why are they acting so much like superstitious medieval priests seeking to burn heretics at the stake? The American public is simply not convinced that climate change is a serious problem. And even if climate change is real, caution is not an irrational strategy. After all, environmentalists not so very different from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wanted to cover the Arctic ice cap with soot in the 1970s in order to melt them as a way of preventing another ice age. If climate change does cause major problems, it is likely more logical to deal with those problems as they arise.

(For more about the dangerous collectivist nature of environmentalism, read my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong. Available now on Amazon in both print and Kindle.)

On Ward Churchill and Collectivism

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

Prior to September 2011, Ward Churchill was unremarkable and not well known outside of the typical tiresome Marxist academic circles. A University of Colorado professor at the time, Churchill’s claim to fame was a dubious claim to American Indian heritage which he could not prove. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Churchill wrote an infamous essay entitled “‘Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” which set off a firestorm of controversy by calling the victims who died in the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns.” Understandably, comparing innocent murder victims to Nazi war criminals did not sit well with Americans. While many are content to merely dismiss Churchill as a loon, it is important to understand his dubious reasoning and to see his errors in thinking.

Ward Churchill is a hardcore collectivist. He believes that human beings do not have individual metaphysical significance or value. They are only significant as part of a larger group. Given his Marxist leanings, this is not surprising. Given how prevalent collectivism is today in the guise of the two dominant mainstream American political movements of neoconservatism and neo-progressivism, it is instructive to consider some implications of collectivism. Given that the collectivist views collective society and not the individual human being as the basic unit of metaphysical analysis, collective guilt is a sensible concept. Under the individualist worldview, collective guilt is nonsensical. Nearly all of Churchill’s intellectual mistakes in his argument are based upon incoherent collectivist assertions.

Churchill begins by claiming that the United States was guilty of war crimes verging on attempted genocide against Iraqis in the Gulf War and beyond. Rather than debate this claim, assume that it is true. He then asserts: “[I]t was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had allowed—nay, empowered—their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name.” This is entirely untrue. Only those Germans who individually committed crimes against humanity were prosecuted at Nuremberg. The Allies made a concerted effort not to repeat the mistakes of World War I. West Germany was quickly brought back into the family of civilized nations, and the Allied occupation ended by 1952. All things considered, the United States allowed the Germans a quick and thorough redemption.

Churchill continues:

As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations [of an alleged American program of attempted genocide against the Iraqi people] with yawns. There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned with. Getting “Jeremy” and “Ellington” to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little “Tiffany” and “Ashley” had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And, to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays – for “our kids,” no less – as an all-absorbing point of political focus.

Let us again allow Churchill to have the strongest possible argument. Assume that the American people were aware that Iraqi civilians were dying in large numbers due to the military operations of the Gulf War and the crippling economic sanctions which followed. Ignore the obvious fact that for consistency, one would have to assign collective guilt to the Iraqi people for the war that their government started by invading Kuwait. There is every difference in the world between inappropriately cheering something on and actually doing it. Those in foreign nations who cheered on the 9/11 attacks were not responsible for carrying them out. This is also true of the American people if they did actually cheer on the violence and brutal sanctions against Iraq. Despite the fact that the United States is a democratic republic, its citizens still cannot be held morally responsible for the actions of their President and Congress. The United States does not have a direct democracy, and elections are not held often. Even if every American had voted for and approved the Gulf War and the sanctions against Iraq, this still would not make them morally culpable. If such a notion of collective political guilt were to be held, it would mean that when a politician commits a criminal offense involving corruption, each and every constituent would have to be sent to prison. In addition, crony capitalism, disrespect for the Constitution among elected federal officials, and a broken electoral process all make the American people more and more attenuated from the harm caused to the Iraqi people. Also, the fact that the government lied to the American people about Iraqi soldiers killing Kuwaiti babies in incubators and about Iraq preparing to invade Saudi Arabia indicates that the American people were not fully informed. The government and the corporatist mainstream media used propaganda that would have made Goebbels jealous in selling the war.

Churchill also suggests that capitalism is to blame for the crimes against humanity committed against Iraqis:

Property before people, it seems—or at least the equation of property to people—is a value by no means restricted to America's boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort zone “pacifists” queuing up to condemn the black block after it ever so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in Seattle.

While history has shown ad nauseum that free markets produce exponentially better economic outcomes for nations than the disastrous Marxist policies that Churchill favors, this is the one place where Churchill is not entirely off base. Corporatism involving the Military-Industrial Complex and war profiteers such as Halliburton does lead to the ginning up of unnecessary wars. The corporatist banking cartel of the Federal Reserve likewise encourages wars for its own ends.

Churchill’s next mistake is in his characterization of the 9/11 hijackers. He lionizes these murderers as brave warriors. He views them as “combatants” instead of terrorists. Given that the hijackers were predominantly Saudi, there is simply no way to characterize them as “combatants” connected with the Gulf War. The United States waged war against Iraq partly in defense of Saudi Arabia. Churchill’s claim is as ridiculous as Belgians claiming that they are waging war against the United States in response to Americans warring against Germany in WWII. To avoid this absurdity, he takes an even wider approach:

A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the “Christian West”—now proudly emblematized by the United States—against the “Islamic East” since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel’s dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered “Desert Shield” in 1990, or at any of several points in between.

Churchill’s collectivist worldview is even more inappropriate here. There are no individuals in this collectivist vision. Those who live in the “West” or “Islamic East” are not individual humans beings. Neither Christians nor Muslims are individuals. They simply exist in virtue of class membership. Apparently, based on this reasoning, all collectivized humans are engaged in countless wars based upon their race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Greeks and Iranians should still be killing each other as part of the ancient Greco-Persian Wars. And Parthonons and Fomorians should still be warring in Ireland.

Churchill’s most incendiary claim—the aforementioned “little Eichmanns” comment—is that there were no innocent victims on 9/11:

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved—and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance”—a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore”—counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in—and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.

In Churchill’s fevered brain, nobody is innocent. This collectivist belief provides a sickening justification for total war. It is also a double-edged sword. It means that innocent civilians—including children—in the Middle East are fair game in this war. A bloodthirsty neoconservative could use Churchill’s argument and claim that because the brave Islamic “combatants” attacked the United States on 9/11, this means that the United States has the right to strike back. Since young Muslim children will grow up to become militants who will hate the United States and may attempt to attack Americans, they are all fair game.

Ultimately, Ward Churchill’s hateful collectivism promotes endless cycles of bloody killing. One wonders with his cultural hyperopia if he is actually even able to physically see individual human beings.

(For a much more detailed critique of collectivism, read my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong available now on Amazon in both print and Kindle.)