Individualism versus war. Obviously, individualism is something heavily espoused in the libertarian tradition, just individual right to life, liberty, and property. I would argue that war is largely the extreme opposite of that, where life, liberty, and property is being rampantly violated. So who is the author of this essay, and and what does he do to unpack that dichotomy between individualism and war? The author is Scott Horton, who is the director of the Libertarian Institute.
My boss over there. And when he's talking about individualism, a lot of people might think individualism is when people do things by themselves. Collectivism is when people do things together. That is not an actual explanation of what the individualism is. Individualism is people cooperating in the web of society based on individual
consent. Collectivism is when some people have the right to coerce others under the guise of helping the nation, helping the race, helping the poor for the greater good, etcetera. The reason this is important is because if you are doing something alone, you're just reading a book in your house. You probably didn't write the book, you probably didn't chop down the trees to make the pages. The author probably stole words that other people. Came up with and put them in the
book. You're probably not generating your own light. You're probably not generating your own electricity or air conditioning. You probably bought the house from someone else who built it. Even at the point of doing something alone, we're constantly cooperating. That is a true understanding of what individualism is. So with that understanding, Scott Horton says war is ultimately about collectivism. During crisis, individuality fades in favor of team effort.
During vital and conflict, particularly between governments, the world becomes especially, it seems for Americans, a giant bloody football game. Our team first, theirs, us first them. Good verse evil go team go. So his thesis is that the only reason the average person is able to justify something like Operation Meeting House bombing of I think 100,000 civilians in Tokyo. Japan.
This would have been in March of 1945, as deadly as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So if you know about it, but they will immediately come back with well, they started it. They had Pearl Harbor, as if the people in this geographical area, mostly civilians, had any part in the decision for the Japanese regime of Emperor Hirohito to attack Pearl Harbor four years earlier. But they have put them in the
same BLOB. It is literally like me going up to an American and arresting them and saying, well, Joe Biden on August 29th of 2021 murdered 10 civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan. Seven of them were children. So I'm arresting America for what America did. Well, America is a group and not everyone in. A demographic is responsible for the actions. It's the equivalent or a general understanding is that each person is part of a number of different collectives.
So I would be part of the male collective, the collective who's in their 20s. I'd be an American who's in Arizona. I would be part of the podcasting collective. You can constantly generalize people and then hold everyone responsible for what a microscopic number of people do. So because people are able to 1st buy into collectivism, Scott Horton says the most dangerous extent of this thing of this assumption is that it leads to
literal mass murder. And they still managed to call us the ideology of greed for advocating voluntary exchange as they defend indiscriminate mass murder. So he says this is the underlying issue with so much of what we see. The reason I chose this one is because it is a timeless message. It's something I wish people would have read in the First World War, the 30 Years War, the Spanish American War. It's so vitally important because it really gets to the
heart. Of of what the issue is even today, you'll see people say just ridiculous nonsense. Well, Xi Jinping is a terrible person, so we might have to go to war with China even though want a former Republican. Richard Nixon shook hands with Chairman Mao and Henry Kissinger shook hands with Chairman Mao. But we can't talk to President Xi. He is just absolutely evil. The US had a formal alliance with, who many say is like a terrific president, Franklin Roosevelt.
Had an alliance with Joseph Stalin, but they're like, oh, but we can't talk to Vladimir Putin. He did bad things in Ukraine. Stalin murdered far more people in Ukraine in the holiday more, and then after that they formed the Allied alliance. So all of these ridiculous things, all of how smart people can make such ridiculous justifications that are blatantly irrational is because they first believe in something called collectivism. That's why I think Scott Horton's essay is important.