Here's What I Think

I don’t believe in much. But I do believe firmly in the concept of the individual, the idea of independence and the freedom of choice. My problem is organization and organizations. By its very nature, organization is the control or influence of one individual over another. This level of organization exists as the most basic conglomeration of human beings. From the dawn of knuckle-walking this sort of organization has been the foundation of “human” society and interaction. Granted, this has served us well as a species, but the inherent flaw is the limitations that it imposes on the individual. Today, choices abound, but these choices remain limited by the pressures, needs and existing systems of interaction. It is virtually impossible to be completely individual or independent, except in isolation. Who, though, is capable of existing in isolation? I have relished the thought that I might be able to exist in this manner. I have repeatedly been proven to be profoundly mistaken. Thus, the aims of my interaction and in the specific case of the interaction within this organization are to allow for the maximum possible amount of individualism. I wholeheartedly believe that all interactions, be they political, social or otherwise, should be based on the individual. People as individuals have the potential to be wonderful or frighteningly terrible. However, the phenomenon of groupthink and the cushion of association provided by groups allows for a great negative potential seldom possible on an individual level.

By making the individual a nameless, faceless, number it is far easier to kill, maim, fail to consider, or slowly poison to death the individual. The loss of the individual is especially prevalent today. Organized groups of people kill countless men, women and children in the name of freedom. Every individual ingests countless poisons and carcinogens that, were they targeted at one person by one person, would be considered murderous. In organizations of people it is far too easy to interact on the dangerous level of organizations. I do not know if it is possible for a truly benevolent, good natured, individually concerned organization to exist. Far too often the organization is concerned only with the organization’s specific interest. The obvious fact that we are all human and therefore all essentially equal is often lost in this capacity. The modern nation-state is the epitome of this sort of lacking.

The only logical way to solve this problem is through an existence of individual, unorganized, independent self sufficiency and dare I even say: personal anarchy. By making the individual responsible and self sufficient, the power of one individual over another is eliminated. This is not to say that people should exist in isolation. Quite to the contrary, people should exist as a community -- a community in which one individual helps another. Hunter-gatherers of the past operated partially in this way. I am not saying that we should all be hunter-gatherers, although if to be so is the choice of the individual he or she should do so. Instead I say that we should live in the way in which we want, provided that it does not impose on the natural rights of the individual. These natural rights I believe are the rights to exist, and to exist in the way in which the individual desires. Now, one might think that I am neglecting to account for necessities of reproduction and child rearing. However, I am not. In fact, I believe that the family unit (whatever that unit might be) should be the core of the individual’s existence.

Some have said that the problem is that the government is exercising too little control over people. I say that it is exercising too much. When the power of one individual to control another is removed there can be no oppression. However, the realities of the present are the present realities. In the face of these realities, the only solution that makes sense to me is to maximize the individual in the present system.

--Ben Porter