Ever heard these stereotypes?
Conservatives don’t care about people.
Libertarians are autistic Rothbard-worshippers obsessed with their own rights.
Anarchists want a world of atomized individuals with no social bonds.
A longtime friend of the Freedom Scale brought this issue up yesterday in a comment, and it reminded me how much these tropes push my buttons. How much do they push my buttons? Really really a lot.
Where do these tropes come from? After all, isn’t there a “little bit of truth” in every stereotype?
Let’s start with conservatives.
Both conservatives and libertarians generally oppose communism, socialism, and the rest of leftism’s bastard offshoots, but since conservatives are far greater in number than libertarians, conservatives tend to be the public face of that opposition.
Leftism began its rise to political prominence as the 19th century was drawing to a close, and became increasingly dominant throughout the 20th. By the end of the 20th century, leftists had achieved near hegemonic control of the mainstream mechanisms of information dissemination: media, academia, and entertainment. As such, they have been able to paint the pictures that everyone sees.
No picture is taller or painted with more garish colors than the picture of what “caring about people” looks like: The left’s method of caring about people is the only method.
Conservatives oppose that—ergo, they don’t care.
Not shown in that picture is the fact that the left’s “caring” is effected with other people’s money. Not shown is the fact that conservatives are actually more charitable with their own money.
How about libertarians and anarchists?
I actually did see the “autistic Rothbard-worshippers” quote somewhere, though it’s not popping up in a quick search. Are more libertarians “autistic”? I don’t know or care.
Are libertarians obsessed with rights? You’re damn right they are.
Without a clear understanding that rights are natural and real, and clear justifications for why they are defensible as such, we are doomed to a world of violence and pain. But the left needs “rights” to be mutable and defined solely by the government—a.k.a. by them. There are two reasons for this.
First, they need to take your money by force. If rights are natural and real, then they form an unassailable moral bulwark against the left’s primary objective: forced redistribution. So the left must make rights hazy and subject to government control. They must make your “obsession” with rights look silly. And, true to form, they must also make your concern about rights look like you “don’t care about people.”
Individual people—and the hideous leftist egregore they have created together—also need your concern about rights for another reason: their own narcissism. People want to feel virtuous. And what better way to make oneself feel virtuous than to show how virtuous you are in comparison to someone else.
We are the BeautifulPeople™ who care.
They are the freedom-worshippers who don’t.
See how easy it is?
Some of these are, of course, genuinely compassionate people who have fallen for these longstanding tropes. Others are just looking for a cheap boost up the ladder—another rung higher in the hierarchy of “virtue.”
Classical liberalism does not say, “I want to be a lonely, bitter, atomized individual interacting with no one, helping no one, and living in a remote cabin somewhere.”
Rather, it is speaking to what is, and ought to be, the first rule of human interaction:
That each person is a sovereign, rights-holding being whose consent must not be violated and who must not be subjected to the initiation of coercive force.
Yes, conservatives and libertarians are generally more individualistic and self-reliant, and less focused on opinions of the collective. This is actually being borne out by social science research on the personality dispositions that precede political alignment. These tropes are thus true to that extent.
But that is where it begins and ends. People on the right have relationships. People on the right don’t hate community. I know this might come as shocking to some, but even anarchists have friends!
To whatever extent people on the right become more curmudgeonly over time, it is because collectivists, statists, and virtue-signalers won't leave us alone.
“We have to violate your sovereignty and force you to do things…”
“Because no man is an island.”
“Because we have to find ways to live together.”
“Because…don't you care about people?”
Because—psst—they have to take your money.
Classical liberals (conservatives and libertarians) end up becoming misanthropic because of this endless assault.
Because it's never voluntary…
Because their sovereignty is endlessly violated by the tribe…
Because the argument that there are no individuals, only the glorious collective, was used to justify the murder of more than 100 million people in the 20th century.
There has to be a better way.
As long as violence is portrayed as compassion…
As long as the individual human person is told that he is a just a cell—a mere sub-unit of the collective…
And as long as that collective poses a genuine threat…
people who actually understand what rights are will be wary of that collective.
That is not our fault. That is the fault of a pathologized version of our nature as ultra-social creatures…and of the ideology that has turned that pathology into a weapon.
Back when I was about 20, I overheard a housemate, who had fallen asleep on the couch, talking in his sleep. The bizarre thing he said became a source of amusement for us for months afterward:
“Ask me nice, ask me suave, and it’ll be cool.”
We on “the right” don’t need you to be suave. But we do need to be asked. But no one ever asks. The entire system is set up to take, by force, and then to denigrate you for standing up for your own rights.
We’re not the ones with the problem. This so-called “society” is.
I can’t keep this train rolling without you. For the cost of a cup of coffee or a quick meal out, you can become a monthly or yearly supporting member!
I'm so happy you pushed back against that commonly applied Strawman argument! To me, it seems to be the result of an echo chamber that perpetuates a belief in the false overton window that puts fascism on the right, as opposed to anarchy.
Nicely stated! It is the height of irony that collectivists who want to reinvent society with other people's money paint themselves as caring, while labeling as selfish those who are productive and don't buy into depending on government for every need and desire. Unblinding the populace to the inherent nastiness of collectivism, along with its certain failure to achieve a prosperous or just society, is the primary challenge for those of us who already understand this.