...[I]t seems there may be a solid and perfectly rational explanation behind the correlation of nerdishness to libertarianism. If you spent your formative years getting picked on by the 'cool' kids (for playing D&D or watching Star Trek or listening to Dragonforce or whatever) you might get the idea that the majority's preferences and priorities are not always right, at least for you, and that maybe you'd prefer it if the majority just left you the hell alone.This resonated with something I've been cogitating off and on for some time. Setting aside the specific reference to libertarianism (the discussion was about libertarianism but could as easily apply to any anti-state mindview) does it not strike you that many of the freedom-lovers with whom you're acquainted are really, below it all, damaged goods? I mean people who spent terrible childhoods, or did time for bullshit mala prohibita crimes, or got fucked over by the IRS, or something that left them shellshocked and angry and highly suspicious of if not violently antagonistic toward authority in general? People you agree with philosophically, in general, but might not be comfortable (I'm speaking of extreme cases here, not the average) leaving behind to watch your children? And that last bit not because they're evil people (freedomistas rarely are) but only because their overall judgment is sometimes rather suspect? People you enjoy sharing a beer with, but wouldn't really want to marry your sister? The sidekick hero in a Niven/Pournelle disaster potboiler, who makes good in the end but who is at bottom something of a ne'er-do-well.
Because I encounter a lot of people like that. Hell, I'm a person like that. And it makes me wonder sometimes.
I mean, my antiauthoritarian attitudes stem entirely from an unpleasant youth and a phobia about official forms - or officialese in general. I'm an introverted follower, but anyone who tries to lord it over me or is even associated with any such earns my immediate hostility - whether he's actually done evil to me or not. And the few hard-core freedomistas I've grown to know well have similar backgrounds.
Not really trying to make a point here. I'm just wondering. I believe that my viewpoint is right. I have no doubt about it at all. And yet sometimes it feels as though it's all just coming from emotional damage.
Do you know what I'm trying to say? Because I'm not sure I do.
5 comments:
Maybe why most of the rest of society tend to label us as anti-social as well. I think there may be a bit to this.
I'm not convinced... I went through pretty unremarkable childhood (other than growing up in a communist country,) haven’t been bullied (much), pretty normal (non abusive) family, etc…
In my case it seems to be in the genes – pretty much my whole family is libertarian-leaning bunch…
I'm not convinced of it either, Jack. It's not a conclusion, just an observation.
In fact I don't want to be convinced. I want to be proven wrong, because it's not an observation I like much. I like to believe that freedom is the natural state of people, the natural yearning of their hearts. On good days I do believe it. On bad days, I look at the way the multitude behaves and I doubt it. That's most of my days.
But the multitude be damned; the only people I'm concerned with are the ones that'll say 'fuck you' and live as free as they can. Probably there's no way I'll ever know how many have that impulse through a healthy love of themselves and their own, and how many because life has just made them angry.
It's an interesting argument, but it proves too much.
Every politician is damaged goods. Seriously damaged. Even the best of the best (e.g Ron Paul) have their quirks, while the overwhelming majority of politicians couldn't be trusted alone in the room with your sister, or your new dog for that matter. These people aren't libertarians, but they are damaged.
Every cop is damaged goods. I'm sorry, but the idea of a good cop is a myth in this society. Every cop, every one, is the club-wielding enforcer of the state and all its excesses. A huge majority have a burning need for authority and domination. A significant number have serious substance abuse problems with steroids and the associated aggressiveness and lack of anger management abilities.
Every social worker is damaged goods. They are tax consumers with a burning desire to impose their views on troubled families. If the family isn't troubled, they will be after the social worker gets done with them. Every one of these busybodies has serious trauma in their past, few if any have relationships remotely resembling normal, but they are certainly not freedom lovers or libertarians.
My point is that you can find people who were picked on, bullied, ostracized, screwed by the authorities, abandoned by parents, raped by parents, a range of traumas as wide and deep as human experience, in all fields.
The argument fails because it is too broad; far too many people who could have learned the lesson that they would rather be left alone instead learn the pleasure of the club and the many rewards of parasitism. Many more people, perhaps most, survive these challenges and become more or less normal people in mainstream society. They come to their world views by accident, by deliberation, or by sleepwalking, and only some retain the scars of their childhood in the voting booth.
There may be correlation between freedom lovers and some of the specific traumas you mention, but until one can explain the fact of jackboots with the same history the argument of causation must fail.
I had a normal childhood I guess you could say. My family background is small farmer/rancher self employed type people in the western mountain and Southwest of the country. So I grew up around guns and real life.
Add in a reasonably extensive study of history and reading all the stuff from Browne, Ayn Rand, James Bovard, Bastiat, Wolfe, Suprynowicz, just to name a few and military and travel experience convinced me of the utter uselessness and evil of government and their whole control, propaganda power game and the people who support that, the file clerks and the enforcers.
I have to admit that I was always an outsider in most social situations. High school, college and the like.
So I think I know the question but I don't know the answer. Sometimes I think it would be much easier if I did have the blinders or whatever it is that most people seem to have.
I'm nothing special but I have always tried to go my own way and that doesn't include worshipping politicians, government and their minions and all the other assorted associated parasites.
Post a Comment