I define Collectivism this way:
Collectivism is–when we follow the breadcrumbs back to the logical premise–the collectivist metaphysic. And the collectivist metaphysic is this: that human existence and identity is not a function of one’s individual self, that is, one’s own ability to create a cognitive conceptual distinction between one’s singular conscious Self, and Other/Environment (or, That Which is Not Self); but rather, existence is function of some manner of group affiliation based upon a group Identity, and the necessarilry underlying deterministic processes which such existence and identity demands.
For example, according to what I term “racial Marxism”, one is considered first and foremost a product of his or her racial category. Like,for example, “white” or “black”. Therefore, the root of the individual Self is found in the ontological primary–or, better termed, the “collectivist Ideal”– of “Blackness” or “Whiteness”, and this Ideal is in turn practically and pragmatically defined and represented by some “Authority” who must claim themselves–or himself or herself–the incarnate representation of the Ideal.
Individual Self, then, is always subordinated to the collective of “black people”, or “white people”, as defined and exemplified by the Authority–they, or he or she, who represents the Ideal, and physically manifests it, to the group. And since the individual is of course born into their “Whiteness” or “Blackness”, the individual himself or herself having no choice in the matter, he or she is wholly determined by the processes which have dictated his or her race; and these processes are always at least tacitly ascribed to the Ideal. For what can ultimately determine race except the Ideal which grants race its efficacy and meaning?
Thus, one’s sense of individual Self, according to the collectivist paradigm, can only be an abberation–an affront to the natural, deterministic order of things. In other words, a sense of individual, autonomous Self, is, in fact, an act of existential treason, and must therefore be destroyed by force, not by choice, since in man’s “fallen” state, which is his “natural” context of Self, he is beer we reality from this perversion of existence…this abomination…this endemic and categorical depravity. And by “force” I mean not only violence, but intellectual larceny–artifice, propaganda, lies, appeals to emotions over reason.
*
I submit that in collectivism, because of its reliance on Authority for its practical manifestation (enforcement), power must constantly be dispatched, and this always for the sole purpose of acquiring wealth–or “resources”–at the expense of others. That is, power exercised from a collectivist premise is solely a power meant to commandeer; it is never a legitimate–that is, voluntary–exchange of value, regardless of the context (the specific collectivist Ideal in question). You see, collectivist power does not earn. It takes.
Now, I should pause here, in the interest of rational consistency. Above I just referred to “collectivist power”, however, I submit that this is a redundant expression. The exercise of power over others always implies a collectivist premise; a collectivist Ideal. There is no way to compel by force the behavior of another human being if we in fact concede that each one possesses a metsphysical context of singular Self whereby they alone are in the position of ultimately determining their own desires (needs and wants) from this absolute context; that is, the context of individual Self.
Put simply, to use power to compel behavior is to assume that the individual is existentially insufficient, and therefore he or she must be compelled from “outside” themselves, by one or some who claim the authority to exist for them, according to some “transcendent” enlightenment (revelation; awakening), which is always a function of some omnipotent, ethereal “creator” or determining force, which is collectivist Ideal–like “Blackness” or “Whiteness”, for example.
Henceforth, then, I will not speak of collectivist power, but simply “power”, since I submit that all power–the use of force to compel others–necessarily proceeds from a collectivist metaphysic.
2.
Relationships which in incorporate exercises of power by one or some over others are never, and can never be, mutually beneficial. One is always affirmed and expanded, while the other is always sacrificed.
In other words, the exercise of power is always intended to commandeer wealth, never to earn it; and this power is always morally and intellectually underwritten by an appeal to Authority.
Now, the corollary relationship between wealth and power is built upon this Authority. For Authority is an appeal to some absolute mandate from the transcendent, cosmic Ideal to use power to compel sacrifice (of wealth, which includes Self). Authority, then, in a sense, IS power; and power is force, and force is always applied to elicit sacrifice.
So what is sacrifice, beyond the surrendering of self and wealth? Sacrific, within the collectivist framework, is the absolute moral and intellectual obligation of he or she who is to be sacrifice; which makes true then that compelling sacrifice through power is the absolute moral and intellectual obligation of he or she who is in authority.
So, what is the exercise of Authority again? The use of power, which is force. And why power? To commandeer wealth (resources); which is the practical, visceral, and inexorable consequence of increasing the scope of Authority as a function of the transcendent, collectivist Ideal’s absolute mandate to compel absolute sacrifice to that Ideal.
*
Authority is the use of power according to an Ideal’s mandate to compel sacrifice; but it is also an epistemology and an ethic–that is, it is an intellectual and moral appeal to the “truth” of the collectivist Ideal.
The Ideal itself must be rooted in Authority, you see, because it cannot be described by rational explication since it is by definition beyond the epistemological and ethical frame of reference of individuals. And this is why ideological “truth” is always a function of ” revelation”, where revelation is defined as the transcendent (or “supernatural”) dispensing of unknowable knowledge.
Since authority, then, is the moral and intellectual appeal to the “truth” of the collectivist Ideal for the exercise of power in order to commandeer wealth, we are relationally–or “politically”, in philosophical parlance–going to observe what I call an “authority/submission dynamic”.
The authority/submission dynamic in turn implies the following practical politic also dynamic with respect to wealth (resources):
Absolute gain/Absolute loss
The salient term is, of course, “absolute”; for once we concede Authority as the intellectual and moral political premise, power must be absolutely applied in order to compel people and wealth absolutely into the collectivist Ideal. The Ideal of which is, again, incarnate in the Authority, which has been specially (transcendently) “called” to compel sacrifice.
The Authority has a divine mandate to use power to compel individual sacrifice because it is necessary to compel behavior, since human beings from their “natural”, and “fallen” or “insufficient” individual frame of reference cannot choose to obey, being wholly outside the collectivist metaphysic, as specified by the particular Ideal in question. In other words, since the human being is cognitively/consciously an individual (all of us naturally employ the pronoun “I”), he or she cannot obey on his or her own. He or she cannot, by “nature”, see beyond the absolute frame of reference of his or her individual awareness/consciousness. Thus, he or cannot choose to obey; he or she must ultimately be forced.
So, when we speak of collectivism, Authority is necessary to force the surrendering of individual wealth. If Authority is not necessary, then there is no rational argument for any kind or measure of authority in the first place. To say Authority is optional is to metaphysically concede that the individual possesses the innate ability to apprehend truth from the frame reference of individual Self, and thus can independently choose to act in a manner consistent with truth, and truth’s corollary, morality. In which case, compelling behavior by force must then violate truth and morality at the most fundamental level–the metaphysical. And this completely repudiates the collectivist Metaphysic and Ideal, full stop.
Therefore, authority conceded in any measure, I submit, must inevitably be applied absolutely. And absolute authority applied is the application of absolute power. And absolute power seeks to acquire absolute wearth.
So, authority/submission = absolute gain (for the authority)/absolute loss (for those under authority). In ratio form, this relationship looks like this:
1:0
The ratio represents the notion that the collectivist Ideal, which is absolute, and established by its Authority, is the only legitimate thing which has a right to exist. Since it alone possesses “truth” (being “truth” itself), and is the absolute source then of the truth–the “real” reality– of all things, anything which assumes, or appears to possess, an independent existence must be sacrificed. And nowhere is such an independent existence more apparent than in the individual human being–he and she who has the evil temerity to use the pronoun “I”.
Think of this like “God” in the erroneous orthodox Christian sense, where God is the direct and utterly controlling, determining and determinist source of all things–all which exists and acts. If God is and acts for everything, then what does that make everything?
It makes everything God.
God is all, and thus all is not actually all at all, but all is nothing. And hence the ratio: 1:0.
But here’s the thing, and you probably see where this is going. Since God = the essence, will, and action of all things and all persons, what we really have is not that God = everything, but that God = God. Or:
1:1
Which is really:
1
Therefore any individual who claims a distinct existence, and by that distinct existence a distinct identity, and by that distinct identity a distinct volition, must be forcefully sacrificed, and abeolute my so. They must be compelled into oblivion by the absolute seizure of their wealth (which includes their very selves— the source of all their labor) so that that which is the 1 is truly and pragmatically and effectively the only ONE.
3.
Authority as a function of the collectivist Ideal demands absolute sacrifice, and it compels this sacrifice by exercising absolute power, and this in order to subordinate all things and all persons to itself; the practical manifestation of this being the commandeering of resources to the point where no one else– no individual–has the means to pursue or manifest or display their own unique existence in any relevant or substantive measure whatsoever.
Authority, to put it directly, is the violent seizure and consumption of resources to an absolute degree in service to a given collectivist Ideal. Nothing outside of this Ideal–or, functionally speaking, the Authority which enforces it upon individuals–is considered to possess a legitimate existence. Thus, anything– or, more importantly, anyone–outside of the collectivist Ideal, which by definition includes all individuals, will be sacrificed. It (anything) and they (anyone) will be rendered the ZERO so that the Ideal can be the ONE.
And thus we are brought back to the claim which is the title of this article:
Wealth and power are necessary corollaries when a function of a collectivist metaphysic; specifically defined as a given collectivist Ideal. An increase in one necessitates an increase in the other, and this by subordinating all wealth–all life, property, labor, currency, and capital–to an established Authority, which creates thus the authority/submission political dynamic, which in turn renders the existential ratio of the Authority to its subordinates (as the authority is the practical incarnation of the Ideal) as 1:0; which functionally equals 1, where 1 is the Authority, which claims to act in service to the Ideal– this Ideal being the infinite, transcendent, cosmic Cause and Inexorable Determining Will of all things, and on the behalf of which all things are sacrificed by Authoritative power.
In short, Collectivism will inevitably and necessarily manifest the exercise of absolute power in order to acquire absolute wealth; one necessarily amounting to the other.
4.
Within the framework of collectivism, an increase in power necessarily results in a commensurate increase in wealth, and vice versa; for wealth and power are corollaries because the collective Ideal necessarily assumes them both, and, ultimately, absolutely. The point then, or the unavoidable consequence, you could say, of wealth is power; and the point, or unavoidable consequence, of power is wealth.
Both find their intellectual and moral foundation in Authority, which in turn creates the requisite political dynamic of authority/submission. And what the Authority demands, both intellectually and morally, is that all things, including and especially individual human beings, must be forcibly (violently, or through manipulation, which is a form of violence) compelled into absolute sacrifice, and this because human beings naturally and endemically observe existence from the frame of reference of a distinct, autonomous, and singular Self, which is by definition an intellectual anathema and a moral offense to the collectivist Ideal.
The collective, or group, Identity is rooted in the collectivist Ideal, which is the transcendent Cause and Essence and Will of all things which divinely mandates the Authority–a human being or group of human beings who serve as the incarnate (i.e. material/practical) manifestation of the Ideal–to assume and use absolute power to acquire absolute wealth (persons, property, labor, currency, etc.) in order to functionally establish the assumption that the Ideal is the only thing which may exist; because it alone, not the individual nor any other thing in creation, is absolute.
A specific collectivist Ideal can be almost anything. A few examples are:
•A deity or deities
•A religious denomination, or sect, or the “Church”
•Culturally or socially-based collectives like the Tribe, the Family, the the Nation, or Tradition
•Sub cultural or political groups like the Gang, the Club, the Party, the Association, the Team, the Brotherhood, the Union, the Workers
•Natural “law”, like the Laws of Physics, genetic or biological determinative attributes like race, gender, and even IQ depending on who you ask, evolutionary “forces”, and other physical, biological, and/or physiological processes.
Everywhere you go you can hear the collectivist ideal spouted in terms like: local church, church membership convents, small groups, redemptive groups, Lone Ranger Christian, obey your leaders, submit to authority…..and on and on. The government is just as bad seeing people only as groups and not individuals they are there to serve not manage.
People have been conditioned to think in terms of groups. Not individuals.
Btw, what happened to Johns blog? It is gone.
Yes, once you know what collectivism is, in precise terms, and are on the lookout for it, it’s astonishing just how easy it is to spot. It is everywhere. It’s the driving premise which underwrites almost all of human thinking. Which is why human history is just one epochal misery after another.
As far as John’s blog goes, I have no idea. Don’t really speak to him.