On quite a few occassions I have entertained the view that for me personally, individualism will prevail. What I mean is that one has to have a certain ego in order to stand up to the majority. It is rather a psychological debate where people will generally conform to the standards/orders set by the majority even though one is sure of one's quality of opinion, and that basically one is 'right'.
A person definitely needs an ego and then perhaps this is ecologically viable only when one is more prone to conform with the minority rather than the majority i.e. something quite in contrast to populism.
Various psychological experiments have been done where participants were asked to give their view on something which is unmistakably obvious when the majority around them were intentionally giving wrong answers. Despite the answer being obvious, a significant number of participants conformed with the view of the majority which was openly wrong. These experiments were performed under the McCarthy era in America which can indicate that it is also the situation where one finds oneself in that matters and not only one's own will and personality.
Perhaps there will be times where instead of conforming with the majority, one actually chooses to follow the minority, for whatever reason. Perhaps even, that's why Communism always fails - people simply join in the ride, but do not really mean it...
Maybe Lenin's problem was not the hypocrisy of his motives, but rather the hypocrisy of his 'followers'. Maybe, he was too honest and naive...
"The commonplace is the most terrible phantom binding us with vain but strong, invisible chains.” ~Bakunin
not that anarchism would do anything about that...
best blog ever, but damn you for your insight, for it keeps me awake thinking upon it
f we, for the period of this article, assume that religion is purely a human invention, than perhaps in some distant past it was not a god, but a revolution that encompassed civilization, and ended up converting humanity. Now, centuries later, we are feeling the repercussions of this, because now, even between different sects of the same religion we are warring to kill or convert the others, the non-believers. In this case, it would seem atheists, and to a certain extent agnostics are the "avant-garde minority that is revolting against the status quo. The "plebeian majority" in this case are all those believes, the Pope, Muslims, Christians, etc. I would have to say I agree with this assessment. But perhaps I'm only saying that from the perspective of feeling vindicated, by the implied truth that I am now one of the Vanguard. Someday, maybe I won't be special, perhaps when everyone believes as my minority does. But until then, viva la resistance!
Commenting by HaloScan
