Egalitarian Collectivism Sabotages Human Potential

For over a decade, this Web Site--now at the Truth Based Logic Domain--has defended traditional Conservative American views of liberty, economics, property, money, government, law, community, family, ethnicity & social policy. We provide arguments, proven on the anvil of experience, for which those who seek to undermine our cultural heritage have no adequate answer. In this pursuit, we have repeatedly attacked three critical attributes of a Leftist assault on all that once defined America; the America that achieved as few, if any peoples, ever achieved in the previous history of Mankind:

1. A compulsive need to pretend an equality of the human potential; the absurd implication of such, that peoples are interchangeable, reflected in American immigration policy since 1965; the foundation for the Marxist demagogue's mantra, that those who fail in life's quests have somehow been wronged (exploited or victimized) by those who succeed.

2. The folly, whether induced by such compulsion, or merely reflecting a perceptual deficit, which seeks the intervention of a remote central Government to try to manage the economy, reengineer social attitudes, or impose a variety of cultural uniformity on the diverse communities, schools or sub-cultures of any Nation, State or Federation.

3. An extrapolation from 1 & 2, that causes many to pursue new "world orders," and, in preparation for some vision of same, to seek to impose one nation (or faction's) social theories & cultural pursuits on other peoples--often by brute force.

These prongs of our contemporary problem are, of course, closely related. Each reflects a basic disrespect for the unique qualities of individuals & the actual diversity of races, nations, tribes & their subdivisions; a contempt for what philosophers identify as "free will"; an arrogant (hubristic), or compulsion driven, indifference to any data or phenomena that does not fit verbalized rationalizations for a Leftist Egalitarian course. Each premise reflects a notion that Man is more plastic than any empirical evidence suggests; that the social environment determines personality, and that the individual can be radically modified by changing his cultural environment (i. e., that social engineering can actually work to a useful end).

While these attributes have been inherent characteristics of Leftist & Socialist movements over the past two hundred years (Jacobin, Socialist, Communist, Fabian, Nazi or what is now mislabeled as "Liberalism"), they have an ideological cousin with a somewhat broader appeal, the amoral belief that the end justifies the means. While this is certainly inherent in major Leftist movements, it is seen also in other sociopathic personalities, and in some who suffer from varieties of what is popularly called "tunnel vision."

The purpose, here, is not to condense material from perhaps a hundred other efforts. Rather, to suggest how easy it is for those who wish us ill, to use these attributes to sabotage any human society; to sabotage the economy, communities, classes & social infrastructure; to sabotage (undermine) its families, culture & values; indeed, to sabotage every recognizable sub-set of such society, class or community, and its very perception of its own character & nature. To appreciate the need to respond to what has been going on, Conservatives must better understand how the ideological war is being waged against them. In the past, we have focused more on damage that Egalitarian, Socialist & Collectivist policies have wrought. Here, we take a slightly different approach.

To Understand Egalitarianism

To understand how an egalitarian socialist approach undermines human potential, try a personal experiment. When you find yourself with "dead time"--perhaps in an airport or physician's office--consider how a Leftist agitator would play the Egalitarian game. To appreciate the potential damage from egalitarian socialist demagoguery, note how Rev. Al Sharpton, or fellow agitator Jesse Jackson, seize opportunities to destabilize local communities with visitations; how they find excuse to claim unequal treatment, where more objective folk see none.

Once you grasp the formula--for it has been a formula for generations--to recruit those, who would rationalize away their failures by blaming others, to join an agitation; try to imagine how one might apply the technique in new situations: How one might wreak havoc simply by assuming that everyone has equal potential for good or ill--for what is productive or what is destructive--and then play a community, neighborhood, class or some subset of such, in order to turn people against one another. Finding someone to blame for one of the unfortunate vicissitudes of life, or simply developing & then playing on envy or resentment, to divert people from what is productive to what is not, is not difficult, if one has no scruples.

As we have often observed, no two of us are alike. The false egalitarian premise, that people are actually capable of equal performance, is made for the demagogue. While the Rev. Sharptons of this world specialize in exacerbating Black/White racial friction & hostility, the same technique may be employed to virtually limitless effect in the deconstruction of society. In pure malice, one could conduct a study of how students, attending a College or University from affluent neighborhoods, perform in comparison to other aggregations of students (not necessarily even against those on Affirmative Action or "diversity" scholarships). The true Egalitarian activist, attributing all variation in human performance to social environment, could claim an "elitist" bias against students from poor families, to demand special attention to compensate for a less "privileged" childhood.

As a macro application of such idiocy, consider Chairman Mao's "Leap Forward," the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" in the late 1960s. To equalize circumstances, he ordered the wholesale uprooting of Chinese intellectuals from major coastal cities for forced resettlement deep in the Chinese interior, where former scholars were consigned to digging ditches under forced labor conditions, often fatal to the frail or elderly. We have only experienced the tip of the true egalitarian experience thus far in America; meanwhile, Red China has actually recoiled and, now post Mao, has become something of a land of opportunity!

The Egalitarian need to manipulate educational policy is never a short term project; nor is there any sign of moderation in the folly already achieved. In the real world, children of those who succeed will tend, on average, to inherit the aptitudes of their parents. The roots are genetic. (Granted there are the atypical, in both directions, among both the high & low achievers; but exceptions satisfy no rule makers.) The needs of an Egalitarian "social justice" fantasy can never be truly satisfied, absent a very vicious policy to restrict or remove the most qualified. [If you think that idea bizarre, or only limited to education, contrast present Federal Tax law with the original mandate (Article I, Sec. 9, of the Constitution), which only allowed direct taxation on a per capita basis. Does an Obama demand for higher taxes on the "rich"--rhetoric demanding "shared sacrifice" (that those already highly taxed pay yet more, before those supposed to benefit from taxes on the "rich" lose any unearned benefit)--not fit a pattern?]

Or consider, were a new breed of Egalitarian activist to shift attention from an attack on the academically proficient, to one on those physically more able. We had an inkling of the possibility there, in the impact of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on Collegiate sport. The target was different, but the principle the same, as in Chairman Mao's "Great Leap Forward."

Possibilities are endless; opportunity for great mischief, obvious: Take activists claiming to represent an ethnic or social minority, achieving a disproportionate number of traffic arrests, demanding that Police justify every arrest in excess of the per capita "achievement" of an allegedly more "privileged" group. (Variations of such complaint are already out there.) Again, the fantasy of human equality opens up limitless paths to serious mischief.

We showed in Chapter 5 of the Conservative Debate Handbook (below), how egalitarian educational theories have stunted the development of racial minorities in America, effectively sabotaging the prospects of millions of children over the past two generations. The damage is not only in preventing each child from getting instruction, tailored to individual needs & aptitudes. The very notion of a "right" to be equalized in one's circumstances, has a stultifying effect on incentives to personal responsibility, to all personal effort in a constructive direction.

The victims of Egalitarian madness come in many sizes, shapes, colors & backgrounds. No one but demagogues & scoundrels ever benefits. The concept is at war with Nature; a repudiation of the past history of human progress; a blatant attempt to undermine the benefits that have flown from a division of labor, based upon the vast variation in human potential. The problem must be faced; it must be addressed, not avoided. At the moment, we write, a strutting Demagogue, firmly engaged in promoting the Egalitarian fantasy, taunts America, and particularly its rooted Conservatives; playing on the misguided, those indoctrinated in the folly that people are supposed to achieve equally; that their attributes are basically the same; that peoples are interchangeable; that those who fail, relatively, have been wronged by those who succeed.

That Demagogue blocks a rational answer to a critical debt problem--the direct result of Leftist policies--insisting that "fairness" requires a "balance of sacrifice!" That those already taxed far more than the Founders ever intended, must be taxed yet more, if those scheduled to receive unearned benefits from the Government, are to see those benefits trimmed to accommodate a crisis in the American debt market. That theory only flies, if you accept Leftist egalitarian premises. Conservatives who understand the issue, need to stand fast against the Jacobin, Marxist, Socialist, Egalitarian fantasy the Demagogue embraces.

As always, those who seek to aggrandize personal power, seek to exploit the idea of crisis; a need to act quickly, rather than deliberately. While there may be perils in deliberation; over the long-term--the multi-generational term, essential to an ongoing society--the danger in precipitous accommodation of a power seeker poses far greater threat to the survival of a community or nation. In a misnamed "debt ceiling crisis," it must be remembered that the roots of the problem grew out of the Socialist/Egalitarian folly of the Demagogue; he, who now seeks to exploit that problem to further an ongoing agenda.

William Flax