Thursday, February 23, 2023

The fifth salient rule is always, and in all situations, to stress the importance of the individual.

From Enemies of Society by Paul Johnson.

The Ten Pillars of our Civilization:

The fifth salient rule is always, and in all situations, to stress the importance of the individual. Where individual and corporate rights conflict, the political balance should usually be weighted in favor of the individual; for civilizations are created, and maintained, not by corporations, however benign, but my multitudes and multitudes of individuals, operating independently. We have seen how, under the Roman empire, political and economic freedom declined, pari passu, with the growth of the corporations, and their organization by the state. The Roman concept of the collegia survived; it was built into the Christian church, and so was carried over into the Dark Age towns and into the guilds of medieval and early modern society. Guild-forms were eventually transmuted into trade unions. The liberal epoch, which occurred after the powers of the guilds has been effectively curbed, and before the powers of the unions had been established, was thus a blessed and fruitful interval between the two tyrannies - fruitful, indeed, because it produced the Industrial Revolution, the first economic take-off, and thus taught the world how to achieve self-sustaining economic growth. The trade union is now increasing its economic power and its political influence faster than any other institutions in western society. It is not wholly malevolent, but is has certain increasingly reprehensible characteristics. One is that it claims, and gets, legal privilege; it thus breaks our forth commandment, the rule of law. Another is that it curbs the elitist urge in man, the very essence of civilization, and quite deliberately and exultantly reinforces the average. As Ortega Y Gasset puts it, in The Revolt of the Masses, 'The chief characteristic of our time is that the mediocre mind, aware of its own mediocrity, has the boldness to assert the rights of mediocrity and to impose them everywhere." Such an actual or potential menace to our culture can be contained, provided we keep this commandment strictly, and protect the individual against corporatism.

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