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Leftism is based on individualism. Conservatism is not.
Kamala at a Pride Festival. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Our esteemed Western Chauvinist recently brought my attention to a brilliant article, which I can’t stop thinking about. If you haven’t read it, you really should: “Leftism is a Death Cult” by CA Skeet. His purpose in writing the article is to explain why Democrats must support abortion, and he succeeds, in my view. But in so doing, he does a masterful job of explaining what a modern leftist is. He understands leftists very well, which I appreciate, because I do not.
Modern leftists are clearly not socialists or Marxists or communists – their ideology does not seem to fit neatly in any of the groups historically associated with the political left. Today’s left appears to be an odd coalition of widely diverging special interest groups who seem to have little in common with one another. So what do they have in common? What makes them leftists? I have struggled with this for years. I just don’t understand.
I was not the first to observe that Islam is a political system masquerading as a religion, and leftism is a religion masquerading as a political system. And Mr. Skeet draws several parallels between leftism and religion. For example, leftists believe they have achieved an understanding that the rest of us lack, so they hate heretics (black women who vote Republican) more than they hate outsiders (white Christian men). On the other hand, he points out that leftism’s extreme intolerance of internal dissent is more similar to a cult than to a religion (emphasis mine):
But while religions don’t allow much room for supernatural error, they allow plenty of room for human error, including misinterpretation and misunderstanding of scripture.
Cults don’t allow for such human error. They’re convinced they fully grasp the totality of the truth. Religions teach humility. Cults teach pretension.
But Mr. Skeet quickly acknowledges that the modern left is missing something that other cults tend to organize around: A charismatic leader. A cult of personality, who inspires followers to devote themselves to the cause.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
I would take his point one step further. The modern left not only lacks a strong leader, but it seems to prefer extraordinarily weak leaders, like Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, and Kamala Harris. How can an irrational cult function, without a strong central force?
Modern leftism is not organized around a central deity like a religion, or a central ideology like a political movement, or a central personality like a cult. And here Mr. Skeet makes a brilliant point. Modern leftism is instead organized around what he calls “The Cult of the Self” (emphasis mine):
I refer to this phenomena as the Cult of the Self.
In the Cult of the Self, every disciple is its own charismatic leader, subject only to their own whims, desires, and comprehension of purpose. In other words, their “charismatic leader” is the individual Ego, thundering from the podium, to which all thought and energy of the adherent is directed. There are no doctrines, there are no ideological tracts, there are no transcendent truths binding us all. There is Me, and there is what makes Me feel good, at every moment, everywhere and forever. Religions require personal sacrifice. The Cult of the Self abhors the very thought.
Mr. Skeet’s explanation of the dangers of obeying only our own desires is one of the most brilliant paragraphs I’ve read in quite some time. I suggest you read this more than once (again, emphasis mine):
In contrast, the Cult of the Self imposes no behavioral limits whatsoever. If a behavior serves the deity of the Self, it is not only permitted. It is openly celebrated. Theft masked as fairness, tribalism masked as diversity, debauchery masked as tolerance, misogyny masked as multiculturalism, narcissism masked as compassion, and envy masked as reparation are but a few of the “values” practiced by this cult. Their overriding value, their “Golden Rule,” as it were, is the complete abdication of personal responsibility at the cost of everyone else around them.
See if you recognize the odd & destructive policies of the Democrat Party, and their explanations in that previous paragraph. I’ll lay them out again below, one by one, to make them easier to digest:
Theft masked as fairness
Tribalism masked as diversity
Debauchery masked as tolerance
Misogyny masked as multiculturalism
Narcissism masked as compassion
Envy masked as reparation
That’s a pretty good summary of the Democrat Party platform. And again, it made no sense to me before. But Mr. Skeet’s brilliant explanation helps me understand.
What he’s building up to with all this is the importance of abortion to today’s political left. When he contrasts the modern left to religions, he points out: “Religions require personal sacrifice. The Cult of the Self abhors the very thought.”
So it’s not that leftists don’t believe that a fetus isn’t a human yet. It’s not that they disagree about whether life begins at conception or at birth. It’s not that they can’t hear a beating heart on a fetal ultrasound like the rest of us can. That’s not their point. In fact, that has nothing to do with their point.
Source: stock.adobe.com
It’s not that they don’t believe in science, it’s that they don’t believe in personal sacrifice.
And nothing requires personal sacrifice like a baby.
So leftists change their focus all the time, from baby seals to trans-sexual volleyball players to the virtues of race riots to solar energy to whatever is popular this afternoon. But the one policy which they simply CANNOT debate is abortion. They can tolerate no dissention on this point. If they ever acknowledge that there is something more important than ourselves, more important than our own ego, then their entire worldview disappears like fog on a sunny morning. Poof. It’s gone.
They lose a lot of votes with abortion policies. You might think they should temper some of their more extreme views on the matter. But they can’t. They just can’t. If they lose that debate, then their entire philosophy unravels, for all the world to see.
Crowley in Golden Dawn garb, 1910 (Wikimedia Commons)
So the modern left is not inspired by Marx or Lenin or Hitler or Castro or Mao or any other prominent leftist leader. It is inspired most directly by Aleister Crowley:
Aleister Crowley was raised in a devout Christian household, but became disillusioned with Christianity and became a proponent of, and participant in, recreational drug use, sexual freedom, and explorations of the occult. He founded a religion called Thelema and declared himself to be a prophet of this religion. His writings describing this religion are difficult to summarize, but the over-arching theme is described in the opening sentence of his first book on the topic: “Do what thou wilt.” His drug use, experimental masochistic sexuality, dismissal of conventional religions and ethics, personal philosophy, and political ideology were all based on freeing the individual from the constraints of social norms.
What I find most remarkable about all this is that leftists portray themselves as more focused on cooperation and social togetherness than those independent-minded Republicans. “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.” Obama called government “The name we give to things we do together.” Democrats don’t praise hard-working, successful, inspiring people. They say, “You didn’t build that.”
Their professed love of community and togetherness is directly at odds with the underlying foundation of their entire philosophy, which is accurately described by Mr. Skeet as “The Cult of the Self.”
Democrats aren’t angry revolutionaries who hate Western Civilization and seek to destroy it. They just resent anything that prevents them from “freeing the individual from the constraints of social norms,” as Mr. Crowley would say. They just want to do whatever the heck they want. With no criticisms, and no consequences.
And then Democrats criticize the radical individualism of Republican voters. Because we don’t listen to Democrats.
Instead, we listen to our God. Or we acknowledge the importance of personal sacrifice. Or we point out the limitations of our own understanding. Or we agree that there are more important things in this world than ourselves. Or something.
Leftism is based on individualism. Conservatism is not. But they are often portrayed in exactly the opposite way.
I thank Mr. Skeet for helping me understand this basic point.
I look forward to reading your perspectives in the comments below.
Published in General
I regret that I can give only one “like” to this post. Wow.
Upon first quick morning pass through this while sitting out back with the dogs enjoying the brisk 38 degree F air and the sunrise, I would only issue my preference for the use of the term “selfism” [in the title sense] in place of “individualism”.
I will read more thoroughly once the pot of coffee has been drained sufficiently.
I think that leftists also want approval of their (individually chosen) self indulgence. My example is the radical homosexual contingent: tolerance isn’t enough. Others must agree and approve and endorse and maybe most of all enable their behaviour. Bring all your children to us. In order to get approval and complicit action it requires oppression and submission.
Miserable stuff all around. But I agree completely: a cult of the Self.
Side note: I wonder how many out there had the term “ZoSo” pop into their head immediately upon reading that line.
I think that your post, Doc, and Skeet’s article, both present a good critique of individualism.
I do not see this problem existing solely on the political Left, and it’s not clear to me that it defines the political Left in the American context. I see almost the same thing existing on the political Right, though applying to different issues.
As an example, consider the individualistic idea that government should “keep its laws off my body.”
I think that Covid vaccination also presented an example of an issue on which most people on the Left adopted a policy that was more communitarian or group-based. To shift examples, I think that people on the Right apply the same values to the issue of immigration.
My suggestion, as a sort of solution, is that we stop viewing individualism as paramount. Most of the rhetoric of both Left and Right, in my view, takes this view. It is understandable, in a way, as our country grew out of the Age of Revolution although, strangely in my view, we seem to have moderated significantly in the application of this idea between the 1780s and the 1960s.
I suspect that this was influenced significantly by developments in my profession, particularly the development of “Constitutional rights” jurisprudence in the mid-20th Century. The argument that one has an individual Constitutional right to, well, something, generally to be free to engage in behavior that the community wishes to regulate, creates a strict win-or-lose dichotomy. There is no room for compromise or the adjustment of interests, in this world view. If enforced by the courts — or if persuasive in politics — the all-or-nothing arguments of individualism are very powerful.
I think that this is impossible in practice, because complete freedom is anarchy. Anarchy doesn’t work.
Returning to my thesis, I suggest that this doctrine of individualism is strong on both the political Left and Right in our country, with different sides taking the individualist position on different issues.
It strikes me, for the first time, that the inherent impossibility of anarchism could explain the odd divisions between Left and Right. Here’s my hypothesis on this issue. Almost everyone knows, deep down, that we can’t live in anarchy. But almost everyone is strongly committed to individualism. What is the solution? Well, you could adopt the individualist position on the issues most important to you, and I could do the same on the issues most important to me. The electorate could then sort itself into two political tribes.
If this is correct, there would be little or no principle behind the positions generally taken by Left and Right. The parties could swap position from time to time on particular issues, which is what we have observed regularly. Most recently, for example, the Right has become opposed to immigration and supportive of economic protectionism.
What do you think of this?
Perhaps that is the reason that individual lefties must alway seek to push the boundaries. You can’t be validated as one’s self with staking out a position outside any convention, even the one someone else staked out yesterday.
A quick caveat, which is probably not necessary:
I obviously took Mr. Skeet’s insights and added my own analysis. I think he would agree with much of what I said, although probably not all of it. I was careful to link to his article, encourage people to read it, and then I directly quoted the relevant passages that I was interpreting, so there would be no confusion between his ideas and mine. I do not mean to suggest that he would agree with my interpretations.
I do think that while leftists cannot be called “communist” in the way that the Soviet Union was, it should be noted that they are marxist. They use basic marxist social analysis.
Marx had pitted the capitalists (owners of capital) against the workers (those who actually make things). The capitalists are the oppressors and the workers are the oppressed. This has not sold well in prosperous America where workers usually do well despite recent times. So, marxism has morphed into dividing us in other ways. Men vs. women. White vs. Black. White vs. non-White. Traditionalist vs. LGBTQwhatever. It is always oppressor vs. oppressed.
So, the root is the same even if the revolution has changed.
Jerry brings up a good point.
The part of this that confuses me is that if the left is governed only by their own impulses, and resent centralized control (Do what thou wilt), then why do leftists build controlling political systems, like socialism and communism?
I wanted to incorporate this dichotomy into my post, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I may have another post coming on this. If I can figure it out.
I’m open to suggestions…
This is the immediate direction my thinking took. I thought selfishness instead of individualism because the attitude embodied in Leftism does not allow the freedom to choose in others which is a requirement in the definition of individualism that I use. I subscribe to this definition because it is the very essence of Christianity since it requires an absolute individual decision to come to Christ for salvation.
I think that part of the answer lies in my previous comment on marxist social analysis. The left wants to be free to do its own thing but at the same time to stop the “oppressors” who imposed their morality on them. The Soviets said that they ruled on behalf of the worker but it turned out that they became the oppressor and made everyone miserable.
Also, if people are free to “do their own thing” then they need a strong government to fix all the things that they have messed up. Take away the capitalists and you have replace what they do with government. (Obviously, that does not work.) Have sexual “freedom” destroy the family and the family has to be replaced with government. That does not work either.
Capitalism and traditional family values actually work toward human flourishing.
When liberty is defined classically, the left almost always favors less individual liberty than conservatives.
The only exceptions are where the liberty in question is the liberty to do something that has traditionally been considered immoral or unhealthy. I can’t think of even one exception to this rule. So your point about Crowley is valid.
But if that’s individualism, it’s a weird kind of individualism. I would call it iconoclasm.
I don’t agree with this.
I think that the focus on “Marxism” is essentially the same as the focus on the “Left” in the OP. I think that dismissing “Marxism” is part of the Right-Left tribalism described in my comment above. It’s also an oversimplification of Marxism, and that’s before we get to the contradiction of so many on the Right complaining about how they are “oppressed” by violations of their “rights.”
Those of you who have been around for a while know that I used to be on the political Right. I was comfortable with the label “Conservatarian” when Cooke wrote his book about it, and gradually moved toward more traditional Republican conservatism, before switching to . . . well, I know not what.
I think that “capitalism” and “traditional family values” are in fundamental conflict. Capitalism, fundamentally, is the ideology of an individualist devoted to avarice. What are the “family values” of Gordon Gekko?
I now find both the Right and the Left to be unappealing.
Maybe some sort of practical populism would work better. We see aspects of this on both political sides — Trump and Vance on the Right, Sanders and Warren on the Left. The basic idea would be to build a society in which the working class has a pretty good life.
The fact that atheistic idolators like Ayn Rand or the fictional Gordon Gekko worshipped money or commerce doesn’t say anything about the morality or desirability of money or commerce.
Unlike socialism, capitalism is not a form of government. It’s simply the economic manifestation of liberty. From the time you wake up until the time you go to bed, everything you do…literally everything…you do to profit yourself in some way. One of those ways is financially. Saying that capitalism is immoral is like saying that eating food or sleeping is immoral. Yes, people can be gluttons or sloths, but that doesn’t make eating or sleeping immoral.
On the modern left, there’s an underlying foundation of neo-Marxist postmodernism and critical theory, but above that there appears a confounding inconsistency which confuses those of us trying to make sense of it all.
It’s obviously collectivist in most ways, but often seems based on selfishness and/or radical individualism. These individualistic stances seem to almost always be rejections of traditional morality, Judeo/Christian ethics, and even God himself. There’s also a sense of youthful rebelliousness, rejecting the mores of the previous generation. Socialist and Communist thinkers have long taught that religion must be done away with in order to reach their promised utopia, so even these individualistic attitudes work toward collectivism.
It shows cult-like behavior but without a charismatic leader, as pointed out in the OP. This behavior also resembles the vicious society that you often see among unattended adolescents, where being excluded from the group seems the worst punishment you can suffer and such exclusion is carried out with glee against any who deviate from the often-arbitrary dictates of the trend setters. The pseudo-religious behavior is likely to also spring from people’s need for moral rules when traditional morality has been abandoned.
To sum up, the left can be understood as if the characters from Mean Girls and Lord of the Flies had been indoctrinated by the heirs to the Frankfurt School. Immaturity meets neo-Marxism.
I also believe there’s demonic influence in much of this.
I think, perhaps, that this formulation is missing something. In my experience, leftism is about individual benefit and societal responsibility.
Conservatism, generally, focuses on individual responsibility and societal benefit.
I know this sort of makes conservatism seem like communism, but that also requires a Marxist mindset of cultural repression of a class of people, need for eternal “revolution,” and a centralization of power in the government to compel and orchestrate individuals to to fulfill their societal responsibility while conservatism generally does not.
Conservatism ties individual liberty and responsibility indelibly together, while leftism separates liberty and responsibility, placing liberty on the outlier individual, while placing responsibility upon society as a whole with an individual responsibility that must be compelled to support the outlier individual liberty.
I do agree with this:
The first blocked paragraph is where our Democrats want to go and the final sentence is why we prefer Trump.
That brings up the difference between liberty and license. The “right” likes liberty. The “left” likes license. The right are adults who like liberty because they are capable of making their own decisions. The left are defiant teenagers, at best. “Don’t tell me what to do! I’ll show you by doing it anyway, even if it kills me!”
It makes me think of some of the lyrics to Ozzy’s song Mr. Crowley.
Mr. Crowley, What went down in your head?…Did you think you were pure?…Was it polemically sent? I wanna know what you meant.”
The iconoclasm of the left is certainly polemical. It’s not engaged in for personal edification, but rather as a means of attacking normal people in order to increase their power.
I don’t agree.
In fact, I think that your argument makes my point. you argued that “capitalism” is “the economic manifestation of liberty.” I agree. But you then seem to think that unregulated liberty is a good thing. That, I think, is the manifestation of extreme individualism on this particular issue.
This actually makes a couple of my points. First, as I noted in my first comment above, it is an example of an argument from the political Right that is based on individualism.
Second, consider the analogies to gluttony or sloth — or other sins, like lust or drunkenness. Are these to be completely unregulated? Do other people, and the community at large, have no legitimate interest in such immoral behavior?
I’m not completely sure of this, but I can’t think of any ideology before this modern individualist-libertarian doctrine that held such a position. It is historically novel, I think. I find it to be a very bad idea.
I also think that this doctrine is completely contrary to Christian Biblical teaching about government. There is not much teaching on this issue. We have Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. Both teach submission to government authorities, who are appointed by God to punish wickedness and reward righteousness.
See Ozzy’s question to Mr. Crowley in comment 19.
And, in my view, much of the Right can be understood the same way, except indoctrinated by the heirs to Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. Immaturity meets Atlas Shrugged.
I find this argument unconvincing.
What is the difference between liberty and license, exactly? As far as I can tell, when the person on the Right likes something, it’s “liberty,” and when they don’t, it’s “license.” Further, there’s not even much consensus on the Right about such categorization.
I think this is exactly wrong. Leftism uses the tactics of neo-Maoism and neo-Marxism to move towards a Neo-Communist form of governance. We see the Maoism with peer-pressure to comply with “the narrative” and demonstrations of compliance (eg, mask-wearing, placards with “in this house…”). We see the neo-Marxism with the pushing of multiple divisive issues (men *are* women, children must get gender-bending surgery, whites/Jews/Asians are always oppressors who must pay reparations). I will grant that there is no head-of-the-snake like we had with Mao or Lenin, but modern communications do not require it. Social media and a complaint Big Media allow a cabal of thought leaders to control the masses through the use of “toxic empathy”. Just because we cannot point to a single leader, does not mean that today’s Leftism is not all about the collective.
This should be printed out and framed.
This is not true. Human greed is inherent in our humanity. Capitalism is about property rights. Those property rights beget contract law, limited liability corporations, and shareholder rights. Those things can be done with our without avarice. Every 501C is a capitalist entity created for the purpose of altruism.
Of course, my early morning analysis above was based on the first quick definitions available (I did check, just to make sure I was sufficiently awake and thinking):
I believe the difference is not minor.
While I do like and respect your whole post, I argue this point only because – to quote (and echo) the greatness of Herbert Hoover in American Individualism – “And from it all I emerge an individualist – an unashamed individualist. But let me say also that I am an American individualist.” (Page 6). Properly understood, this individualism is the root of American Exceptionalism and also the key to not making silly points by twisting it into whatever one’s forced online contrarian persona wants it to be.
Hoover continued:
I believe this American Individualism still exists…at least in major portions of red county America. As others have been lost to modern perversions, I wish to keep this word as uncorrupted as possible. If that means I have to be a Word Nazi…
Apologies for the side rant…your post does deserve better. (The caffeine has kicked in with a vengeance.)
Interesting…as I skimmed through Skeet’s article words like “immature” and “juvenile” came to mind about the left he described. The “adult” comparison also came to mind.
As with labels like Conservative, Liberal, Feminist, Nationalist, Environmentalist, and many others, Individualist is going to have different definitions, depending on who you talk to. Rush Limbaugh used to talk about the “rugged individualist” as someone who had principles and thought through things to make up his own mind, rather than mindlessly going along with the crowd. To some people, an individualist is just a selfish jerk who doesn’t care how his actions affect other people. When I hear the word, I think of it as Rush Limbaugh used it.
But this is a good, thought-provoking post, Doc.
I think there are big differences in the individualism within conservatism (in the current sense) and that of today’s “liberalism” (progressivism, the left, whatever – even libertarianism for some). Maybe a more useful concept would be liberty vs. libertine.
Those who view conservatism as being opposed to any change are sorely mistaken. To a conservative, one only wishes first to understand how things came to be the way they are. Only then can one determine which is better – the “old” way or the “new” way. And simultaneously a glimpse of unintended consequences.
Always the way things are has some degree of connection with the Judeo – Christian ethic, and often even the Islamic ethic. It’s the idea that we have a set of morals handed to us by a power external to Man, and not subject to change or even negation. That is, under the banner of liberty we are free to do as we wish, constrained, or better, directed, by an immutable moral standard. This is Liberty.
Libertinism, on the other hand, is bent on removing all constraints (read standards) on their behavior. Enter Crowley. And thinking about it, Skeet and Dr. Bastiat are right. This libertinism really clashes with Socialism in all its forms. Libertinism is indeed incompatible with Socialism. Come to think of it, so is Liberty. So maybe for the first time they and we agree on something. That’s a little discomforting, eh?
I have to go see grandchildrens’ Lego displays at the library. That’s more important. But I can’t let the wise pronouncements of Obama, the Magnificent, the Wise, go unaddressed here. So I’ll be baack.