Assigned roles

So many people seem to think that Socialism somehow moves people in the direction of community.  We look wistfully back at intact cultures, like the Lakota Sioux in “Dances with Wolves”, or the cultural holdouts in “The Last Samurai”.  But the reality is that all those cultures made absolute demands on their members.  They had places and duties, rituals and roles.  They were not permitted to engage endlessly in childish pursuits, even if they also had places and times to release all their pent up energy.

When I look at hippyish Sybaritic Leftists, it seems to me that they have consigned to the future the adult responsibilities they refuse to shoulder today.  Their “community” is not one of shared work and difficulty, but rather one of shared magical thinking, thinking which somehow posits that without planning and careful thought a better cultural order will emerge spontaneously; and that no present threats to that order need be considered, because it “all works out in the end”.  The reality is that it DOES NOT always work out in the end.  Ask the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who were psychologically and physically tortured following our chosen retreat from Vietnam in the face of determined nihilistic aggression.

The reality of socialism is that it is a vast machine, one which assigns you a part number, and which is utterly and completely indifferent to you as an individual.  You are not a part of a web: you are a cog in a machine which operates for its own perpetuation and benefit.

A friend of mine who had experienced close battle first hand once told me that war is “as romantic as a meat grinder”.  I would submit that Socialism, even in its Scandinavian versions, is as romantic as a car engine.

I will add that the core psychological difference between self identified Socialists and Fascists is NOT a concern for human rights, or any meaningful difference in economic beliefs and practices.  The core difference is that Fascists retain a sense of the possibility of human and national nobility, of qualitative distinction, and socialists reject that possibility.

Let me offer an example: is it better for your mother to stay with you, or an underpaid civil servant?  Is it better that someone knows she loves cherry blintzes, or that she is assigned “rational” food which nourishes her body at the lowest possible cost?

What is the purpose of life?  Is it merely continuing, without enthusiasm, without purpose, without hope of growth?  I cannot tell you how dreadful the mindset of Socialism is to me.

To be clear, I have no objection to charity.  I have no objection to publicly funded homeless shelters, and battered women’s shelters, and the like.  These, however, assume that most people can make their way, and that we just need to pick up temporarily those who fall behind.  This is very different from the idea that everyone must be equal in their results, that greatness is to be discouraged, and that creation is a nuisance.