Auron MacIntyre is a dissident right (DR) thought leader and political commentator…one of the few that has gone “mainstream” as it were, in that he works for The Blaze, which is a Glenn Beck rag…I mean, if that’s your idea of mainstream. The Blaze may be as mainstream as it gets for the DR, I predict, unless they decide to tamp down on the national socialism, which is unlikely unless they plan on doing the old political “bait and switch” to rope in enough suckers to put them into power. I mean, the only place to go besides national socialism is libertarianism, communism, or classical conservatism (or some variant of these), and none of them particularly scream “dissident”, today. So national socialism it is, I guess. At least Auron MacIntyre is unassuming and milquetoast enough to make it seem less threatening. Dave the Distributist is probably better in this regard, but he can’t pronounce words. Ergo, Auron is the dissident “celebrity”.

Er…congrats?

Whatever.

Auron is your typical middle-class, lily-white millennial intellectual—midwit idealism, facile, erudite, and possessing some skill at making the obvious (that which is clear to any run-of-the-mill conservative) seem more profound. In other words, a penchant for bullshit which is unique to his generation of political thinkers.

He has a gentle, non-threatening demeanor and his content is easily digestible, making for one who can smoothly and comfortably disseminate and reflect the DR’s utterly predictable ideology. He burdens neither himself nor his audience with any pesky bugaboos such as complex ideas, illustrations, or explication. How nice of him.

About a year ago, I was listening to one of Auron’s videos—I cannot remember which—wherein he blamed the current rise of Western communism and the consequent moral chaos and social misery on “individualism”.

Which, no, wasn’t a joke. You might think so, but he actually believes it. He actually thinks that today’s global communist hellscape is a product of the categorical antithesis of the collectivism which utterly informs this hellscape.

And then I started thinking…and after only a few moments, not to brag or anything, I realized the problem: Auron MacIntyre doesn’t know what individualism is. I mean really…as in, he doesn’t get that philosophies are formed from primaries and premises that concern the nature of man and reality and that these are what’s known as “metaphysics” and that to truly understand what you are talking about politically you must understand the metaphysics, especially if you fancy yourself a public intellectual tasked with effectively guiding a dissenting political movement, because if you don’t you’ll wind up making an embarrassment of yourself on YouTube by saying something foolish like “individualism is responsible for New World communism” and prove to everyone that your time would be better spent mowing lawns or doing some other less intellectually-demanding task…that is putting it mildly.

By “individualism”, you see, Auron means “solipsism”…which isn’t individualism at all. This solipsism he blames on enlightenment-based classical Western liberalism which informs Western so-called “representative” democracies. You know, John Locke’s whole “the individual is the smallest political unit and the State should consider him thus and govern in the interest of his inalienable right to life, liberty, and property and blah, blah, blah…” or something to that effect.

Now, you might be surprised to learn that I actually agree with Auron that this kind of thinking is indeed the root of the West’s current political trauma, but it is not because “representative democracies” are rooted in individualist philosophy, but because the enlightenment philosophy which spawned classical liberalism which in turn spawned the Western “representative” democracies which are now morphing into a global communist tyranny is not in fact individualist, but an inevitability failed attempt to synthesize individualist ethics with collectivist metaphysics. Western democracies thus are not a manifestations of individualism, or individualist metaphysics, but of collectivist metaphysics which attempt to make the individual the Collective Ideal to which the State will compel the masses. In other words, today’s Western “representative” democracies are nothing more than collectivism in individualist clothing.

Now, because they are manifestations of collectivism in disguise you might be tempted to excuse Auron’s ignorance. I assert that he is nevertheless culpable because the collectivism, while disguised, it is only very, very thinly disguised. Anyone with an eye to see and an ear to hear can perceive the lie from a mile away. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing…if the “sheep’s clothing” consisted of a ten-cent plastic sheep mask affixed with a rubber band, and nothing else. So Auron isn’t understandably mistaken, he is willfully ignorant…and there is simply no excuse. Anyone who asserts himself, implicitly or explicitly, as a political thought leader speaking on individualism is obligated to discern the actual metaphysical differences between individualism and collectivism…and should be able to do this in their sleep. Auron, on the other hand, cannot seem to do it in a video that he produced, reviewed, and edited. Scary.

If Auron truly understood the difference between individualism and collectivism he would understand that individualism could never give rise to a communism government, or any government of any kind, for many reasons, the most obvious one being that individualist metaphysics do not, by definition, imply the group. Thus, one is left wondering how he concludes that you get centralized political hegemony and rank sociopolitical unity from a philosophy which rejects group-identity as having any legitimate metaphysical value whatsoever. In other words, individualism asserts that the group can never truly, properly, or legitimately represent or express the natural, existential interests of the individual; only the individual is a legitimate expression of the individual. The group—the collective—is a mere subjective, contextual, and tertiary function of the individual; the individual is never a function of the group. The “group” in the individualist sense is simply any number of individuals cooperating in service to a given subjective interest, period. There is nothing of law or obligation or duty or reward or punishment or collective identity or collective value or collective responsibility anywhere to be found in any real and rational definition of individualism. These are entirely collectivist premises…and they are premises in which today’s Western communism is obviously and ineluctably rooted. Auron’s assertion that this communism is a function of individualism is laughable…and worse, it is an intellectual abomination. He should be embarrassed.

Back to his conflation of solipsism with individualism…which is, metaphysically, the impossible and contradictory idea of the Self as the Collective Ideal. This lie—this convenient lie—is a bit of insipid collectivist propaganda—a straw man fallacy—to convince people that individualism is a great bringer of human calamity against which only a strong Socialist or National Socialist State can be erected as an effective hedge. It’s a lie as old as Genesis.

The idea that you will get communist political tyranny by appealing to individualism, properly defined, is rank foolishness. Individualism, properly and rationally understood and established, means that the individual qua the individual is the only thing capable of truly and legitimately representing his own objective political interests. This rationale drawn out means that individualist politics must be entirely cooperative, never coercive. The individual shall not be compelled by violence, threats of violence, fraud, legal obligation, collective obligation, or punishment into any collective political identity…he has no metaphysical, rational, ethical, or political obligation to the group whatsoever. No Global Community, no National Identity, no Class, no Race, no Tribe, no Club, etcetera has any legitimate, rational, or moral claim of any kind whatsoever upon his mind, body, or spirit, period, full stop, ever. There is no legitimate ruler, king, queen, or ruling class ever, anywhere. There is no Authority; there is no submission. Ethics are moral, not legal. Politics are categorically voluntary. Ethical violation bring moral consequence (for violating one’s neighbor), not legal punishment (for violating the Legal Authority).

To assert that the rise of Western communism is to be blamed on this philosophy is risible and intellectually criminal. In doing this, Auron MacIntyre has shown that he is completely unfit for his chosen profession…unless we consider his profession to be “propagandist”…then give that man a raise.

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Individualism, again by definition, precludes any root metaphysical value or legitimacy to any group. Thus, it is completely impossible for individualism to produce communism, which, as a collectivist philosophy, necessitates group identity as a person’s root metaphysical expression, and the Collective Ideal as the foundation of the sociopolitical apparatus. This being so, it begs the question: How in the hell did Auron MacIntyre allow himself to get so confused? That is, assuming he actually believes the nonsense he peddles.

Again, it all goes back to the confusion and conflation of solipsism with individualism. He thinks that anyone claiming to be an individualist is asserting that he, the individualist, is the only thing that actually exists. In other words, all things, and especially all other people, are illegitimate expressions of reality unless and until they are made to serve, or become an extension, better said, of one’s Self. Auron’s “individualism” is really just narcissism, philosophized. One’s Self is the metaphysical root, and all “else” is simply a direct function, and direct expression, of “Self”. And what has happened, Auron thinks, is that classical liberalism—rooted in enlightenment philosophy, materializing in a government that exists to promote the individual—has created a generation of narcissistic citizens living in a solipsistic society, creating a culture of moral relativism producing rank degeneracy, thus producing the fertile soil in which to grow leftist political opportunists who exploit the social instability and manipulate the people into atomized, deracinated masses existing purely to serve the hedonistic whims of the ruling communist class.

You see, to Auron, individualism = classical liberalism (libertarianism) = moral relativism (hedonism, degeneracy, irreligion) = national and social disintegration = communism. That’s his equation, and it’s the philosophical equivalent of 2+2=5. It’s complete nonsense from top to bottom…because Auron doesn’t see what should be obvious to any political philosopher asserting himself as among the intellectual class: that his definition of individualism isn’t actually individualism at all, but is, in fact, collectivism. And while this may not be entirely clear to the random layperson, Auron is a professional thinker who has risen to the status of Dissident Right celebrity…and he doesn’t know elementary metaphysics. He is unable to discern the basic real difference between individualism and collectivism, which are the only two metaphysical categories that matter with respect to human existence. This is profoundly problematic, and it reduces his philosophy to Sesame Street levels of seriousness. Be a collectivist…be a National Socialist if that scratches your weird and creepy itch—it’s your right to think and speak what you want, but at the very least you should be able to define what you believe, what you don’t, and know the difference.

Now, if you have read any of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of my articles on this blog you will know that I have explained what collectivism is many, many times, but here it is again in a nutshell…and I don’t really tire of writing it because it is so important: Collectivism is the philosophy informing every single government which exists or has ever existed, anywhere, at any time. It establishes a Collective Ideal as the metaphysical primary from which, by which, and of which all of reality, especially and including mankind, has its direct essence and existence. In other words, all things and all men are, in their proper place, expressions of the Collective Ideal, in totality. There is to be no relevant nor practical distinction…no relationship, no corollary. All is the Collective Ideal.

The Collective Ideal, being utterly abstract—transcendent, divine, and beyond the frame of reference of human consciousness—is a mystical archetype, thus it can be almost anything. The most common broad, or general, Collective Ideal is “The People”; a more specific example is “The Working Class”. The individual, possessing a singular conscious frame of reference, is, in his root nature, a natural born enemy of the Collective Ideal. His sense of Self is his Original Sin. His individuality is a rank offense to the Collective Ideal, which does not see individuality as a legitimate expression of Reality. His Consciousness and its corollaries, will and choice, must be nullified and destroyed, then he must be absorbed into the Collective…he must become an extension of the Collective Ideal, and this is realized by his categorical obligation and obedience to the One Group, enforced and coerced by the Ruling Class—the State—which exists as the incarnation of the Collective Ideal to the masses. Men must all belong to and become a function of the One Group—the Group must have no parts, so to speak. The Collective is not an “us” but an “IS”.

As I said, this is accomplished by the State. A ruler, or a ruling class, is established (assumes power) to enforce Collectivist Ethics, known as the Law (Legality…as opposed to Morality), to which the the masses (the “unwashed” individuals) shall be obligated by violence, threats of violence, and punishment. The State—government of the ruling class—represents the materialization of the Collective Ideal into tangible reality. As far as the masses are and are to be concerned, there is simply no practical distinction, period. The ruling class is the Collective Ideal; the Collective Ideal is the ruling class. The ruling class thus becomes, for all practical purposes, The People, The Working Class, The Nation. the Race, Climate Justice, Social Justice, The Church, etcetera. The ruling class, in other words, is God to the masses, and the masses exist solely at the , whim and pleasure of its divine Authority. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it is thus: if the Collective Ideal is God, the ruling class is Christ.

This is Collectivism; and the description herein is Collectivist metaphysics…in brief summary, of course. So from this, let us remember Auron MacIntyre’s interpretation of Individualism and then ask ourselves just what exactly the difference is between that and collectivism.

The answer is: there isn’t any. Auron’s definition of individualism is simply collectivism, where the Collective Ideal is the Self. One’s Self, being solipsistic in its metaphysics, and not individualist, represents that from which all others are a direct function and expression, and to which they shall be obliged whether they like it or not. This “individual” thus believes that he may commit any number of moral crimes against his fellow man, because his ”fellow man” is a lie. Only “I” exists…the “individuality” of others is an existential fraud and must be subsumed into “Self”.

As I said, this is merely collectivist metaphysics in individualist clothing. It is a complete lie to say that this solipsistic “individualism” has anything whatsoever to do with actual individualism. Like a tin wagon has anything to do with a battleship. Bollocks.

Yet there is no surprise here…Auron would define individualism this way. His ignorance is a function of his collectivist ideology. In other words, an ideologue always defines other ideas from the “immutable” frame of reference of his own (false) assumptions, which, being fundamentally a function of mysticism with a gnostic epistemology, do not possess any “null hypothesis”…which is just a fancy way of saying that the ideologue will never accept any reasonable criticism of his mystic beliefs precisely because those beliefs are not a function of reason in the first place. “An insane person cannot be reasoned out of his insanity” you might say. Thus, Auron, being a collectivist—which means an ideologue, because collectivist metaphysics are not rational, ever, in any iteration, and thus are mystical, and thus all collectivists are ideologues, not reason-ists—not only would, but only ever could define individualism from a collectivist frame of reference. That is, he would and only could define what an individual is according to a collectivist metaphysical interpretation. Which, being mutually exclusive of individualism at the root metaphysical level, must necessarily define it incorrectly, because it doesn’t understand it, because it can’t, which means Auron can’t. Collectivist metaphysics consider the individual—the Self of human singular consciousness…one’s singular conscious frame of reference—an illegitimate expression of reality…a lie and a fraud and a threat to “truth”. And in Auron’s case, a threat to the American Nation

And it is from this irrational, ideological, and mystical metaphysical frame of reference that most people approach reality, humanity having lived under the auspices of government and ruling classes for nearly the whole of human existence, and thus not really knowing anything different, and Auron is no exception. Which is precisely why, when confronted with the evil that is today’s leftist communism, his solution is simply to lie to himself and become an obverse version of the opposition. He fights collectivist ideology with more collectivist ideology. His solution isn’t freedom…though he thinks it is—he is lying to himself. His solution is to reframe and rebrand his overtly collectivist enemy as a manifestation of individualism, and then declare, implicitly or explicitly, that we need a strong, collectivist response to the evil of global, communist “individualism”. Do you see how ridiculous this is? Well…Auron doesn’t…because he is an ideologue, and rational consistency is simply not the means by which ideologues discern between what is true and what isn’t. He addresses his hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance not by seeing his rational error and correcting it, but by appealing to the mysticism of his metaphysics, which instead of seeing the rival Collective Ideal (e.g. the Communist World as opposed to the Nation State) as mere an iteration of his own collectivist metaphysics and then dealing with the hypocrisy accordingly, he simply rebrands it an invasion of “individualism” and condemns it. In other words, he takes the lazy way out. This is not a philosopher or thought leader, its a propagandist. And it is so very violent.

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When you ask anyone, “Why does man need government?”, the answer is almost always some version of, “Well, we can’t just let people do whatever they want”. In other words, if we let human beings do “whatever they want” we will get rank psychopathy; and, if left to itself, outside the Authority of the Collective Ideal and its ruling class, humanity writ large will collapse and disintegrate under the weight of its own natural-born intellectual and moral perversion. In other words, man’s individuality—his Self, his frame of reference of singular consciousness—is insufficient to his own existence.

America, and the West in general, if we are to believe in the best of intentions—which, frankly, is a big “if”—have attempted to buck the idea of the “insufficient individual” and establish “representative” democracies to form governments that promote the “enlightened” version of individuality, and legislate the “People” in the interest of “inalienable individual rights”.

This…er…hasn’t worked, to say the least.

The United States, for example, once the smallest, most minarchist government in the world is now by far the largest, and rivaled in history perhaps only by the British Empire, which at least had the corresponding flashy pomp and ceremony. I mean, seriously, leave it to the Americans to create the only boring empire in history. And a stupid one.

At any rate, the Founding Fathers would certainly blush in embarrassment (or envy) at the hulking, monolithic, centralized abomination that their “enlightened” experiment has become. The experiment was a giant fail, to say the least.

Now, people think that the American socialist juggernaut is a deviation from its philosophical roots, but this is a lie. On the contrary, what we have today is a direct function of them, and can be traced via a direct line right back to the Constitution. That’s an easy bull’s eye, quite frankly. The socialist nightmare with which Auron now has to content on his home turf is not in spite of foundational American political principles, but a product of them.

The reason why is multi-faceted, but it it includes a rather simple and intuitive explanation…one which can be inferred from the information already written in this essay. At the heart of the United States of America is, like all nations, its government. The United States was always going to have a government, and thus the United States was always going to be rooted in collectivist metaphysics, regardless of how vociferously and genuinely its founders and political leaders espoused the virtues of individualism. Because government is always and only a manifestation of collectivist metaphysics. Always and only. Period. Full stop. Individualism simply does not recognize coercion as a legitimate means by which anything is achieved in the interest of the individual, ever, under any circumstance, and government is by nature and purpose coercive, Ever. Thus, governments and ruling classes are simply out of the question. Period. Full stop.

This being the case, the United States government, and the “enlightened” West in general, was only ever going to define and promote the “individual” according to collectivist terms. Whether they knew it or not.

And what are these collectivist terms?

They are the terms which say that individuals are insufficient to their own existence because they are, in their natural state, violent, self-serving, rapacious, pernicious, licentious, arrogant, narcissistic, solipsistic, psychopathic, thoughtless, mindless, morally degenerate, and hedonistic.

So…a society ruled by a government which exists to promote the “individual” is going to look like what, do you think? And what kind of people are going to rise to positions of prominence and authority in such a society?

Go to your television, computer, phone, newspaper, window…favorite social media site, Netflix. Spend a few moments looking around.

Exactly.

Welcome to the nightmare. And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Auron is right to be concerned; and he’s not wrong in his description of the problem. I have called America the “perfect tyranny”—meaning that it is collectivist metaphysics taken to their purest, most rarified conclusion: absolute epistemological and ethical chaos. America is the object legal declaration of rank hedonism. For a government to exist to promote the “collectivist individual” means to legislate—to enforce and promote by State violence—pure evil. It is the state-sponsored utter rejection of Truth, God, and Reality writ large. It is legally enforced insanity. If you thought mid-20th century Germany or Russian was bad? Just wait.

So, yes…it is not Auron’s description that is the problem. As I said, he is right to be concerned. It’s his metaphysical analysis and solution which are the problem, because they are entirely hypocritical. What the West is doing and becoming today isn’t individualism, it is collectivism, and always has been. It’s the “Self” as the Collective Ideal…which isn’t the Self at all.

Individualist metaphysics are not solipsistic at all. Without getting into the details, because this is already getting too long, individualist metaphysics do not consider other people—other persons…other Selves—as existentially and morally inferior to one’s Self, and illegitimate, but instead corollary. In other words, to deny Others—to deny the sanctity and validity of the person, mind, spirit, and property of Others—is to deny one’s Self. Thus, it goes without saying that individualist metaphysics necessarily preclude the establishment of a State, which exists to co-opt these things in service to the Collective Ideal (meaning the ruling class) by violence…and it masks this moral affront by calling it “enforcing the Law”, and the law is purely the collectivist Ethic.

In true individualism there is no government, no ruling class, no aristocracy, no king…because there is no Collective Ideal to be made incarnate in order to compel mankind out of its “false Self” and into its proper “Collective Identity” in order to “save” “them”. In other words, human beings are born entirely sufficient to their own existence, with a conscious frame of reference which is by nature capable of apprehending Truth and Value and willfully acting in service to them according to itself. Man is able in his natural Self, not evil, and therefore does not need to be forced and coerced by some gnostic Authority into “right thinking and behavior”.

Governments, always a function of collectivism, not individualism, are utterly antagonistic to humanity, not its protector and provider; and represent its enslavement, not its freedom; and its destruction, not its salvation. In a truly individualist society where “people can do whatever they want” moral degeneracy—rape, theft, fraud, murder, etcetera—are anathema, and bring swift moral consequence, and are categorically incompatible because they represent a rejection of the rational definition of “they”. Meaning that if I do whatever I want, but what I want and what I do is the violation of my neighbor (my fellow man), then I have in fact rejected myself, and thus there is no longer a legitimate moral “I” or “Self” anywhere in the equation. I have ceased to be a man and have become death to my neighbor, and he is not obligated to suffer me. He is morally justified, and even morally obliged to protect himself and his fellow man, even if it means destroying me. Incarceration, banishment, death—these are moral consequences in an individualist society, not punishment, and I have earned them by willfully committing the crime of violating my neighbor and thus denying my Self in the process, becoming no longer a man, but an evil presence, which must rationally and morally be resisted. Thus, there is no useful nor justifiable hedonism or moral relativism in an individualist society, nor any government to inflict these by law. There are only persons, not “the People”, who together cooperate for their own good, and thus by natural, corollary extension the good of others.

Auron MacIntyre doesn’t understand individualism. Individualism could never give rise to a communist State; it couldn’t give rise to any State. Auron thinks his enemy is the left and the left’s “individualism”—its “individualist ethos”—but in reality it is himself…in the form of his foundational collectivist metaphysics. And thus, if he and his ideological comrades on the dissident right get their way, they shall inevitably become a manifestation of that which they hate.

Or at least pretend to hate.

END