An Insidious False Choice: Left to Right

An Insidious False Dichotomy

Take a look at this graph:

It purports to represent the choices that we have in our politics. You can chose communism on the one side, or fascism on the other, or you can try for some more 'moderate' form of collectivism such as socialism in the middle. But look again, this graph is deceitful.

In the same way that you might trick a child by offering a choice of 'a drink of water before going to bed' or 'a story before going to bed' the child is still going to bed-- which is, of course, the real goal in offering the choice at all. In choosing one or the other the child is also choosing to do what you want.

This graph is exactly such a trick, but it's motives are not so benign as getting a child to rest. This graph is saying 'would you like collectivism delivered as communism or delivered as fascism?' And it further deceives students learning about social sciences by diverting attention to the 'red herring' of socialism as a more 'moderate' form of collectivism.

The real choice isn't what form of collectivism that you want to have the real choice is between collectivism and individualism. But this is not a choice presented to students, as the teacher would have a difficult time getting students to swallow collectivist ideology is a choice other than collectivism were presented. Everyone starts out as an individualist. Parents know that every child goes through a period of asserting his or her individuality and slowly learning—not that he or she is not an individual but that—there are other individuals are the child who the child must learn to get along with.

Collectivism is not presented as a choice to be compared to individualism, but rather it is presented as a 'false choice'-- what is called a false dichotomy—where students are tricked into learning about how one form of collectivism compares to another instead of learning how collectivism compares to individualism. This is insidious. And this is wrong.

The greatness of the idea of America is the idea of the individual, not the collective. The rights protected by the Constitution are rights of individuals—not of the group. But the elitists have turned classroom instruction into collectivist propaganda in order to indoctrinate students into accepting that they are not individuals but are rather only members of various groups. And it has worked surprisingly-- shockingly-- well.

This is particularly evident when any attempt is made to contrast political conservatism against political liberalism. Since liberalism is identified as either socialist or communist, and since students are taught that the opposite of communism is fascism, they erroneously think that conservatism must identify with fascism. Conservatism identifies with individualism. It doesn't identify with fascism or socialism or communism because these are all collectivist views. The word 'Fascism' comes from the idea that a bundle of stick –a fascista—is stronger than an individual stick. Fascism is not a conservative idea because it is a form of collectivism, if anything it would be a politically liberal idea—just like communism and socialism.

Young people today commonly see themselves and others through the lens of what group they belong to, whether that is defined by race, age, wealth, activities, gender, religion or a thousand other means-- instead of seeing themselves and others as unique individuals. Oh, the elites will give lip-service to the uniqueness of the individual, but they will turn right around and target those who do not fit into one group or another –particularly when those individuals do not belong to their group-- for ridicule and exclusion.

What can be done? Start by refusing to play their game. Start by making sure to inoculate young people against this trickery by that they are first individuals and that they don't have to be just a part of a group. I would advocate getting involved at the local level and demanding that collectivism not be assumed and that it be taught as a contrast to individualism—but I don't know if anyone would even listen. The obvious course of action is simply to be aware of this deception and to be aware of what your children are learning and when they reach the point of being given collectivist propaganda, to simply counter it by pointing out that we are all individuals first. It is such a simple notion and intuitively understood that I would hope all it takes to knock over this deceptive 'house of cards' is the breath of just one word, one word that only an individualist will truly understand: Freedom.

That is my hope.

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