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The Two Collectivisms March 8, 2007 During
these past weeks, I have been conducting an informal survey on varied
message boards, in order to try to learn something about the relation
between people's collectivist beliefs. To do so, I posted a survey asking
people to rate their belief in the following social factors: government,
religion, nationalism, family, popular culture. The ratings were designed
to measure the individual's personal perception of these factors, and
asked for desirability (from "I would like it to be a dominant force
in society" to "I would like it to be marginalized or disappear
as a social force"). First,
I posted my survey on my
own message board, Stefan
Molyneux's board, and the Ex-Christian
message board, places where there is a strong emphasis in rejecting
all collectivist beliefs, in order to provide a baseline. Then I posted
the survey on an atheist board (Rational Response Squad), a Christian
board (Christianforums), a fundamentalist Christian board (Crosswalk
Forums), Libertarian boards ( Before
I get into the survey results, I have to mention one problem regarding the
responses. On most message boards, my survey got a good reception. On the
left-wing and right-wing boards, however, it met with a lot of suspicion
and sometimes downright hostility. This became a problem for the survey,
as I only got five answers from individuals self-identifying as
Conservatives, despite multiple attempts. I have yet to understand this
hostility. Here
are the means for each factor, grouped by self-identification. (For
the sake of readability, I converted the ratings in numbers, where 0=
extremely negative 2= neutral, 4= extremely positive) Non-believers
(baseline): Government 0.33 Religion 0.23 Nationalism 0.43 Family 1.66
Pop. Culture 1.73 Libertarians: Atheists:
Government
1.42 Religion 0.05 Nationalism 0.74 Family 2.26 Pop. Culture 1.37 Left-wingers: Christians: Right-wingers:
(with only 5 data points) In
these results, we see some basic patterns. As expected, Libertarians
scored lower on Government than the baseline, and atheists scored lower on
Religion than the baseline. Interestingly, left-wingers scored lower on
Nationalism than the baseline, which indicates that extreme leftism in
some way can be characterized as a rejection of nationalism. Given the
predilection of Liberals to promote cultural supremacism and trade
barriers, this may seem incongruous, but remember that this survey was
meant to measure personal perception, not correlation to concrete
positions. Liberals strongly believe that they are opposed to nationalism,
and that is what must be explained. Other
results are also counter-intuitive. The very low Government ratings for
both left-wing and right-wing self-identifiers is puzzling. Why are both
groups opposed to what is, in effect, their only mode of expression? And
why are left-wingers basically indistinguishable from Market Anarchists? To
be honest, I started this survey based on half-baked, unscientific
hypotheses. They all failed. But on the other hand, my analysis of the
data confirmed another, more scientific, model. To understand this model,
and before I reveal the results, I first need to explain the two
collectivisms. In
sociology, there are two kinds of collectivism--vertical collectivism and
horizontal collectivism--and two associated kinds of
individualism--vertical individualism and horizontal individualism. To
understand these very simply, think of individuals in a group structure.
Vertical collectivism is a structure where there are strong links up and
down: an authoritarian structure, made of power relations. Horizontal
collectivism is a structure where there are strong links right and left: a
conformist structure, made of self-censorship and reinforced by traditions
and belief in equality. The
different types of individualism and collectivism obviously cause
different patterns of behaviour in their host society (and they are all
present in any given society in different ratios). Horizontal collectivism
is associated with communal sharing (i.e., trading without regard to cost
and benefit), vertical collectivism with authoritarian hierarchies,
horizontal individualism with personal tit-for-tat strategies, and
vertical individualism with trading and market processes (Koerner,
"Relational Models and Horizontal & Vertical
Individualism-Collectivism," 2003). Horizontal collectivist support
group reward systems, while vertical collectivists (and presumably
horizontal individualists as well) oppose such systems (Chen, Meindl and
Hunt, " Testing the Effects of Vertical and Horizontal
Collectivism," 1997). What
does all of this have to do with how people believe? It suggests a very
interesting line of inquiry: whether the standard "left" and
"right" designations are not labels used to disguise different
kinds of collectivism. The
primary collectivism of the left wing is horizontal collectivism. Liberals
fight against social institutions because these institutions create
inequality and power relations: organized religion in its
"saved/unsaved" dichotomy, strong self-identification and rigid
power structure, nationalism in its enforced division between citizens and
non-citizens, between one's "country" and the rest of the world,
and the family structure in its inherent authoritarianism and transmission
of cultural norms (including religion). Because of the inherent populism
of horizontal collectivism, Liberals can only oppose popular culture to a
certain degree, for wholly opposing it would mean putting distance between
themselves and others, and rejecting the principle of conformity. Conservatism
primarily reflects vertical collectivism--the belief and devotion to
authoritarian power structures. Thus the Conservative supports the family
above all, being the most concentrated form of authoritarianism, the
nation and religion, which both reify the individual as having a
"special" place, and of course militarism, another concentrated
form of both authoritarianism and inequality (between the aggressors and
the victims). Just
as the Liberal's pet peeves reflect his dislike of authority and
inequality in power or resources (gun ownership, tax cuts, racial issues),
the Conservative's pet peeves reflect his dislike of non-conformity and
individualist value-expression (civil liberties, drugs, homosexuality,
abortion), as well as his dislike of egalitarianism in principle and
practice (evolution, welfare state, cultural relativism). So
the common Libertarian opinion that left and right are really the same is
not true at all. Rather, it is the State that remains the same, and thus
the expression of left and right positions through the State remain the
same, hence giving the illusion of similarity. The
question of why both left and right oppose the concept of government is an
interesting one. My hypothesis is that both oppose it for different
reasons: Liberals focus on the authoritarian and hierarchical aspects of
government (militarism, corporatism), and Conservatives focus on the
egalitarian aspects of government (welfare state, public education). The
concept of the modern democratic government seems to be the kind of
compromise that no one likes. Although
they may still hold to some collectivist ideas, Libertarians and Market
Anarchists tend towards the individualist side on both axes, at least as
regards to society. This means that Libertarians support market processes
and tit-for-tat relations, and are opposed both to egalitarianism
(conformity, unaccountability) and authoritarianism (obedience, loyalty).
Libertarians oppose government not only because they are against
authoritarianism but because they, like people in post-Communist
societies, understand "the incompatibility between state authority
and self-determination" (Kemmelmeimer, Burnstein et al.,
"Individualism, Collectivism, and Authoritarianism in Seven
Societies," 2003). Right
and left wing have not always been exactly as they are now, obviously. The
evidence shows that political positions move in time, and we should expect
that as perception changes, so does the expression of horizontal and
vertical collectivism. In societies where government is still limited,
belief in government can be compatible with horizontal individualism. In
places where Christianity is associated with liberation theology--strong
horizontal collectivism--the relationship between Christianity and
socialism is reversed, while the relationship between Christianity and the
family structure (with its attendant beliefs, such as being anti-abortion
and anti-homosexuality) is maintained. There
are conceptual limits to this model. When seen from the perspective of
Market Anarchist Theory, there is little ontological difference between
horizontal and vertical collectivism. Authoritarianism in theory implies
conformity to the dictates of the power structure in practice, and
egalitarianism in theory implies in practice the existence of a ruling
class to impose this artificial equality and dictate the "common
good." Given
my newly constructed position, I now regret having only measured
horizontal collectivism in my study, as it would have been very
interesting to confirm the disparity in vertical collectivism as well.
Just a "democracy" or "income inequality" rating would
have done fine. Oh well. Does anyone have some money to throw away? Francois Tremblay is the main writer for the Radical Libertarian blog, co-host of the Hellbound Alleee Show and has self-published a book called The Handbook of Atheistic Apologetics.
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