The new scoundrels leading the political Left are finally admitting—after more than a century of brazen lying by such Leftist scoundrels as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and Barack Obama—that they are socialists. Therefore, without confusing readers and without repeating lengthy explanations, I can now just refer to Leftists as socialists.
Socialism is generally understood to be a social system under which “the means of production” are owned by society as a whole instead of by individuals. But this political idea is based on an entire system of philosophical premises.
At its root, socialism denies the efficacy of the individual, volitional, reasoning mind. This denial leads to emotional indulgence, dependence—in mind and body—on some collective, denial of the very existence of objective truth (resulting in the abandonment of honesty), collective (‘social’) justice based on race or sex or tribe instead of judging individuals for their choices, collective decisions regarding all intercourse, and cynicism and mindlessness in art and romance, to the extent that there is no real art or romance under socialism if carried to its consistent end.
The antithesis of socialism is a philosophy of individualism (synonymous with capitalism), based on the right of each individual to act freely in his own interest—guided by the use of his reasoning mind—to produce, keep, and enjoy the property he earns. This right entails also the right to trade, that is, the right to engage in intercourse by mutual consent only. Individualism also entails independence, justice (based on the choices of each individual), integration of mind and body, integration of reason and emotion, and a heroic view of man expressed in reasoned selectivity and discrimination in artistic creation and romance.
Individualists understand that the most fundamental “means of production” is the reasoning individual. Socialism denies this fact explicitly, but recognizes it implicitly in the following respect: Under socialism, society owns not only all physical property, but also the very life of every individual. However, by the very act of owning every individual, forbidding every individual to act according to his independent reason, socialism destroys the efficacy of every individual. This is why socialism always ends in a collapse of civilization, and mass death.
Under individualism/capitalism, individual people own capital. Under socialism, society owns individual people.
There is a growing body of evidence that mainstream companies that purport to provide impartial platforms for the dissemination of information on the Internet—companies such as Google (which includes YouTube), Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon—are rigging their systems in favor of socialists and against individualists. See, for example, bans by Patreon, YouTube’s recent demonetization of videos posted by Steven Crowder, and a video this week of a Google executive describing YouTube’s policy of steering viewers away from videos made by individualists. For a large archive of such anti-individualist practices, see this “TechWatch” page maintained by the Media Research Center.
This practice of burying speech is unethical if for no other reason than that these mainstream companies are supporting the socialist side, and denigrating the individualist side, of current discourse. The practice has rightly been recognized by individualists as a threat to freedom. Thankfully, some supporters of free speech are seeking to build competitors to the socialist-supporting companies. One such enterprise is Thinkspot, recently announced by Jordan Peterson.
But some serious context and perspective are warranted. Yes, this situation on the Internet is very bad. But the socialists have for more than a century been up to something far worse.
Consider the very popular individualist voices on the Internet: Ben Shapiro, Glenn Beck, Dennis Prager, Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Mark Levin, Steven Crowder. These individuals, along with numerous others, each have more than a million followers, and some have many millions. We individualists now know something we never knew before and cannot un-know: We are not alone.
Now consider the nation’s schools. Where are the individualists in our school curricula? Where are the books and articles by John Locke, the American Founders, Frederic Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand? Where even are the teachers who have read these giants?
Think of the worst-case outcome of the current subversion of individualist speech on the Internet. That worst-case outcome already exists in American schools, and has so existed for more than a century. That is the political reason why our civilization is now at the edge of a cliff.
But recognizing this fact reveals the key to victory. We individualists can win the fight for freedom without changing the mind of one socialist. All we need do is teach those who are already individualists to be more consistently individualist. And the most important place to be consistently individualist is regarding education. All we need do is abolish government-run—that is, socialist—schools.
Such an abolition would have massive short-term benefits along with the obvious long-term ones. More than three million socialist intellectuals would lose their job. That would mean far fewer irrational, dishonest books and articles for socialists to spread on the Internet as well as in classrooms. The defunded socialists would have to spend hours bagging groceries and busing tables instead of prowling online. Many of them might even leave the country and take their lousy votes with them. Most importantly, the very campaign for freedom in education would teach individualists to be more principled in their individualism.
Even without the short-term benefits, America could certainly hold out long enough for the long-term benefits to actualize.
The desperation of the socialists is manifest. Even a modicum of free speech has upset their expectation of total indoctrination. The socialists now openly decry freedom of speech in universities!
Democrat candidates are now calling for (retroactive!) free tuition for all college enrollment. Such a policy is a single-payer scheme that would inevitably lead to totalitarian rules governing what qualifies as a college, thereby extinguishing the last sparks of a free market—that is, free educators and free students—in higher education.
But the individualists would have the upper hand, if only we knew that we have the upper hand. Again, all we need do is stop feeding the socialist-school beast, and the beast will die, and freedom will live.
To that end, I wrote a letter last month to my Utah State Senator, Evan Vickers. He did not reply. That letter, modified and expanded, appears below—this time as an open letter:
Dear Sen. Vickers:
I had the good fortune of hearing you speak briefly at the Iron County GOP organizing convention on April 27. You made two statements that stood out to me. I recall them as follows:
- Socialism is crazy.
- For the first time, most young Utahns indicate that they will vote Democratic.
Sen. Vickers, given these two facts, I have a question for all Utah Republicans: Why do we tolerate a socialist system of schools?
The so-called “public” school system, from kindergarten through graduate school, is more accurately identified as a socialist school system. “Public” schools are not merely open to the public, like public restaurants; they are financed, owned and operated by government. Is it any wonder that these socialist schools teach socialist doctrine almost exclusively? These socialist schools are the primary cause, dwarfing all other causal factors, of young Utahns voting Democratic and supporting “crazy” socialism.
Government in the U.S. spends roughly a trillion dollars per year on socialist education. This amount of money dwarfs all other expenditures on ideology, from political campaigns to news reporting to film and television. Even in Utah, citizens are coerced into spending more on socialist education than they do on church. How do Utahns expect to preserve and advance their culture when even they are spending more to destroy it? Socialism in education is the craziest form of socialism.
I fled decadent California seven years ago, and I have enjoyed political freedom and wholesome culture since then, living in Iron County. But I have witnessed a cultural decay even here, especially at Southern Utah University, and especially in the arts.
I used to see most SUU theatre productions at least once; some productions I saw twice, and one show—Fiddler on the Roof in 2015—I saw and loved three times. But now, I rarely go to SUU theatre at all. The SUU Department of Theatre Arts and Dance had, and still has, some individuals of extraordinary character and ability. But a socialist system, with its inherent denial of the efficacy of the individual reasoning mind, a denial especially virulent in today’s postmodern Leftist culture, cannot resist being overrun by that nightmarish culture. I do not relish criticizing an institution that includes certain individuals I admire, but integrity demands that I do so.
One SUU show I saw last year contained language and gestures so obscene that they could aptly be described as pornographic, and it was all for no apparent reason other than to shock the audience with sexuality depicted as mindless, angry, and ugly. Last year’s last SUU mainstage production, Urinetown, apparently was chosen not for any artistic merit (which it was devoid of) but rather because it insulted every value of the local culture. The play (stupidly) denigrated capitalism, partied over patricide, and claimed that the way to save the world is to stop having babies. The production received shrieks of approval from the audience of students in response to every insult.
A 2017 SUU mainstage production, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, was about one naive young woman who loves Jesus, and four f-word-spouting young women, each with her own sick twist on a mindless attitude toward sexuality. The four foul-mouthed women finally got the Christian to apologize—evidently for being civil and mistakenly expecting the same from the others.
Another 2017 SUU mainstage production, The Laramie Project, essentially blamed the Christian community in Laramie, Wyoming for Orwellian “thoughtcrime” that allegedly caused the murder of a young homosexual man.
Do you see a pattern? If so, here is another pattern. At least three additional SUU productions in the past two years pushed an LGBT agenda. I did not go to any of these shows, but I did see what looked like two scantily-clad young men in a women’s chorus line in the SUU production of 42nd Street, a play set in the 1930s. The men did not seem to be there for a joke, but rather to make some kind of LGBT point. And last December, I came across a Facebook post, by the SUU Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, promoting a list of monologues for transgender and “non-binary” individuals. The first monologue on the list was obscene to a grotesque degree.
Another recent SUU mainstage show was Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. I did not (and would not) see this show, an apology for individuals who have murdered or attempted to murder American presidents. But I did attend a lecture, before one performance, presented by an SUU professor of history and supported by an SUU professor of theatre. The theme of the lecture was that the assassins were logical consequences of the violence of America’s founders.
One SUU freshman told me of the student’s choice not to major in theatre at SUU because of the program’s unwholesome demands. An SUU graduate recently told me the same story. A talented SUU theatre student told me of the decision to move upstate because there was hardly anything wholesome enough to audition for at SUU anymore.
I too am considering relocating to Utah County to be near BYU instead of SUU.
The SUU-owned Utah Shakespeare Festival is taking steps down the same sordid path taken by the SUU Theatre Department. It is now commonplace for Utah Shakes to do plays filled with foul language and lewd gestures, far beyond anything in Shakespeare’s bawdy, and of course lacking Shakespeare’s artistry. And the company now explicitly makes artistic decisions in support of “cultural sensitivity,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “marginalized voices.” All Republicans should know that these phrases are euphemisms for quotas and partisan agendas based on race, sex, and sexual orientation, and in support of every “culture” opposed to Utah culture.
The problem, of course, does not begin in college. In an SUU course I took in directing theatre, I reported in class that my directing project would be of a story by O. Henry. Not one student in the class had heard of him. I shudder to imagine who or what has taken his place in the standard elementary school curriculum.
Individuals have a right to perform decadent theatre and obtain decadent schooling—with their own money. But why are the rest of us being forced to pay for it, with little of our own money left over to buy or create something better of our own choosing?
Of course, I do not advocate that government dictate to schools and theatres regarding acceptable content. Quite the contrary. Dictation by government—the establishment by government of an educational and artistic orthodoxy—is the system we have now.
Government must be separate from schools and theatres, for the same reason that government must be separate from churches.
With so much wholesome course content now on the Internet, any Utah family is capable of providing homeschooling that is better than what any government-run school can offer. And any industrious young adult can get a better university-level humanities education for free over the Internet than he can get from any state-run university. Classic books are available online for free, and printed classic books are inexpensive. Even in the sciences, so much is available now online. My alma mater, MIT, has every single course online for free. I would not count on MIT for instruction in the humanities, though; there are much better, inexpensive sources for that.
Government-run schools are obsolete and worse than a waste of money. They are the main destroyer of Utah culture. To put the matter in a positive light, there is one simple thing we can do that will save our culture and inaugurate a new era of flourishing: abolish government spending on education in the State of Utah.
If other parts of the State resist this remedy, here is a manageable first step: The State should divest itself of Southern Utah University and sell the university’s assets to the highest private bidder. There are some very good individuals throughout SUU; under capitalism instead of socialism, these individuals would flourish as never before. And so would their students.
And here is a manageable first step toward privatizing SUU: The university should divest itself of the Utah Shakespeare Festival and sell the theatre company’s assets to the highest private bidder. There are some very good individuals at Utah Shakes too. After more than half a century of being on the government dole, a theatre company—of all things—should be free to stand or fall on its own.
Sincerely,
Ron Pisaturo
Cedar City, Utah
See also these articles:
The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of Our Time