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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

“Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other involves orcs.”

John Rogers [wikiquote.org]

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At Salon.com [salon.com], an interesting personal bio on recovery from libertarianism. Offered here without comment.

Some people experiment with drugs. My youthful indiscretion led me down the weird path of tribal individualism

No comment.

Some people experiment with narcotics, and others have a proclivity for kinky sexual practices. For a few months in 2014, I experimented with a more dangerous vice, something called “libertarianism.” I was in my twenties, given to youthful indiscretions, and, under the protection of white, middle class privilege and advantage, the political debates of the Obama years seemed rather benign, at least in comparison to America’s present and escalating psychotic episode. I had already written a book on Bruce Springsteen’s political music and activism, having long embraced leftist politics. Libertarian ideology became briefly attractive, because I had sensed that the left was growing too moralistic in its articulation of policy proposal. My aversion to Puritanism in all forms led me to believe that any set of political principles that purports to allow everyone to run wild, without interference from law enforcement or any other official regulator of human behavior, is desirable.

Still no comment.

My own intellectual exploration coalesced with my successful transition into adulthood. My then-girlfriend — soon to be wife — and I bought a lovely home. I signed my second book deal, wrote regularly for several reputable publications, and obtained a decent position at a fine university. The myth of meritocracy massages the beneficiaries of our economic disorder into a state of self-confidence and complacency. Any philosophy that tells people like me, who grew up in the suburbs, attended private elementary school, and never had to confront the mean fangs of poverty or the bare knuckled fist of racism, that we earned everything we have solely according to the volition of our own brilliance, skill and diligence will inevitably attract devotees. It is for this reason that a friend of mine’s assessment of libertarians remains so definitional: “It’s a lot of white guys jerking off.”

Again, no comment. But, ouch!

We will celebrate a self-destructive form of ignorance that shows little regard for the messy and contradictory realities of political progress at the governmental level. Lyndon Johnson had a history of not only racist rhetoric, but enforcement of Jim Crow in Texas. As president, he signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Barack Obama was the most supportive president of gay rights in the history of the country, but in 2004 he said, “marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Finally, if we continually administer a praxis of purity on each other, we will lose the ability to compete with an increasingly devious, amoral, and extreme right wing.

The libertarian temptation to which I briefly succumbed has become more dangerous than it was in the Obama years, because of the emergence of social media as a dominant force of political communication and recruitment.

Comment not given. But if I were to provide some guidance for Soylentils, I would say that the piece is an interesting intellectual journey of an American writer, and may prove edifiying for many. But I am not saying that.

Original Submission