Posted on 02/13/2024 12:02:40 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
In his excellent podcast series, “Cold War: Prelude to the Present,” Bill Whittle opens the series by describing the Berlin Wall as “not only a wall between East and West Berlin.” He continues:
It was the division of humanity into two different camps…
On one side of the wall, the Eastern side, were the collectivists, who believed that society takes precedent over the person. This collectivism was advertised as new and scientific, but the fact is that collectivism has been the default position of humanity since humanity began.
No, the actual newcomer to this clash of visions were the individualists on the Western side. The first government in history dedicated to the idea of the individual being more worthy of protection than the State, had just turned 170 years old when the 40-year conflict known as the Cold War began.
This was, indeed, the ideological framework of the Cold War. And comparatively speaking, it was true. Freedom of speech and the press, religious freedom, the innate right to own firearms as a means of self-defense and against a tyrannical government, and due process under a system of laws that apply equally to all citizens -- even if these concepts were not always adequately observed or protected in the United States, they were at least designed to uphold a national creed, enshrined in a constitution, that grants the individual citizen protective advantages that are prohibited to the State.
No such rights existed in the Soviet Union, and the power dynamic between its citizens and the State was designed with a precisely inverse aim in mind.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
the LEFT loves to talk about the collectivist carrots
no mention of the stick
“...collectivism was advertised as new and scientific, but the fact is that collectivism has been the default position of humanity since humanity began. “
~~~
I didn’t click and read the whole article so I shouldn’t post but that hasn’t stopped me before.
It’s not just humanity. Collecting into groups happens all the time in mammals, and you even see birds fly in flocks and fish in schools for protection, but it’s more of a mammal phenomenon to use groups to improve hunting. Even primates like chimps have a form of tribalism where they will attack neighboring communities in groups. Almost all animal groupings have pecking orders through, so forming a “mob rule” collectivist group to increase your survival doesn’t always mean you will thrive, even though there are others in your group who will.
And that is where collectivism in humanity tends to be more stark than in the animal realm. What tends to be good for the collectivist “society” tends to be heavily stratified, were the masses who rule so completely over the individual all tend to suffer as a group, to the benefit of a select few. In human collectivism, the ruling class live like royalty, usually with an administrative and/or military class in between, and the masses left with the crumbs.
You would think that most humans would automatically object to collectivist ideologies, particularly with how oppressive it is, but there is one very very big caveat. Humans are war-like, particularly when they form groups. It’s a sad fact. But history is a meat grinder. Your almost as likely to die even if you are in a larger and more powerful group, particularly if you are at the bottom stratum and you are basically fodder, but your chances for survival are still higher than than if you are in a small and/or weak group.
In this one sense, even the ‘society’ that protects the individual still needs a strong defense. In some ways, it’s a much better hybrid, because people who are permitted to thrive on their own merits will tend to be much better motivated over the long term than those who have to be oppressed as individuals into compliance to the group. Unfortunately, with all of the punitive taxation and redistribution and control in “the west” we have today, the collectivism is winning, and thus, the individual is fodder again.
.
Very much the way I see it and you are much better at putting it in words. Thank you. I’ve always been the odd one out in the middle of 6 children. Never have got over it and still the odd one out at 90.
Vets
I know a vet who needs life saving care…that has been bumped twice
Thank you thank you thank you! I thought I was the only person still alive that realized what obama was doing. When he ran I started reading his bool and anything else I could find. He simply was very suspicious. Everything I found of or by him didn’t FIT. I have screamed at everyone all through drop out of nowhere with a nasty background. America has gone down from day one and nobody dared say “The King has no clothes”!! I have copied all of it from the Thinker just to keep for myself. I will copy your post too if you don’t mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.