Enough Already with the Groupthink

Just to take a rest from the faux profundity of Campaign/Damn Pain 2008, I thought I would ruminate on how lazy people can be in attributing blame to groups – nations, cultures, races – that should properly fall on individuals. If you think race, racism, racialism, and race-baiting may be playing a role in the current presidential race, you won't be wasting the next few minutes, promise.

So, well, anyway ... I got an e-mail recently in which the writer, T, broached among other subjects that of Lenin's financiers, the money men who not only conspired (yes, the 'c' word) with the Bolsheviks but paid all the bills. He was wondering whether anyone was brave enough to tell the truth, to wit, that "the Jews...bankrolled and led the communist takeover of Russia."

I wrote back, saying much of what you see here under a headline now. About 300 words into the letter, I told T that he'd have to wait for the rest of it; my quick reply was quickly turning into an essay. I was starting to warm to the topic of group identities, and what sloppy labels they were for attributing praise or blame when it is particular, individual actions that, in sum, make the world turn.

I, for one, never appreciated Dan Rather saying "America bombed Kosovo today" when that hotspot was hot, as I, for one, was nowhere near the place. America didn’t do that. Russians in general didn’t overthrow the Czar; certain Russians, and certain foreigners, did. Likewise, "the Jews" didn’t bankroll Lenin, although I did understand and agree with T’s underlying position. But conflating the Jewish race with specific Jewish financiers achieves a sweeping generalization that fairly begs to be dismissed out of hand. Nevertheless, despite some rhetorical laxness, there was no indication of racial animosity whatsoever in T's letter; it was all quite matter of fact.

There is a distinction between (a) the Jews as a group committing some remarkable act, like, say, crossing the parted Red Sea and (b) certain elite Jewish people, not representative of the average Jew, being integrally involved in some other remarkable act, in this case the financing of the Bolsheviks. Frankly, following their flight from Egypt, I don't know how many more times "the Jews" acted with such unanimity; "the Jews" didn't even found Israel, inasmuch as in 1948 there were more Jews outside that new nation than inside.

And back in 1918? Yes, of course Lenin had Jewish financiers among his international, internationalist cadres. He never mobilized the working class in what became the numerous slave states of the Soviet Union, but he certainly managed to mobilize legions of the rich and disaffected around the world. Including, of course, some Jews.

However, I don't think the internationalists held any convention to gauge, debate or build support among world Jewry for their financing of Lenin's power grab in Russia. The very fact that Lenin's sealed train passed unmolested across borders of bloodsoaked adversaries, during a dangerously anarchic period at the end of World War I hostilities, suggests influence and power available to very, very few. Behind Lenin were some of the richest, most powerful, most organized, most ruthless, most focused men of the last several centuries. And, yes, some were Jews. And many were not.

The real common denominators here are, as in most of man's egregious escapades, the creed of greed. A creed of rapacious greed, powermongering, coercion and control unites totalitarians of all self-descriptions. Dictatorship is amenable to the trappings of either racialist nationalism (Nazi Germany) or revolutionary internationalism (Soviet Union) without deviating from the standard formula: central planning, total regulation, nationalized property controlled in various degrees and manners, pervasive secret police apparatus, paramilitary law enforcement, wars on poverty and hoarding and overpopulation and drugs and hateful thinking... Hmmm. I had better move on before I get depressed.

Anyway, race and religion can also unite people. But right thinking still has to be in evidence, and deviation is not tolerated. So, group actions, both in tribal cultures and contemporary America, are still predicated on shared creed; absent that, groups dissolve. It is true that some movements add healthy doses of nationalism or ethnicity -- the Puerto Rican "terrorists" recently in the news profess a strange brew of socialism, anti-Americanism, get-whitey resentment and ethnic solidarity -- but this demonstrates that one's creed can be fervently held, and effectively preached, even if it's as simple as, "Okay, it's you and me against the world."

One could argue, I suppose, that "you and me against the world" has historically been the most effective motivating creed for aggressive social movements and conqueror nations. But it is still individuals who respond to demagogues, cult leaders, celebrities and heroes, and who are motivated to group action through a variety of methods. If groups acted monolithically, there would be no need for leaders; but history is replete with stories of exceptional people galvanizing enough of their contemporaries to accomplish things on a truly grand scale -- not all good, necessarily. But behind the acts of what seems a race or a nation are thousands or millions of individual decisions; specific conspiracies for personal gain, like financing coups, must by definition be ascribed to individuals, acting in concert or not.

We must always think in terms of individuals, NOT groups. The inability and unwillingness to do so in American society, jurisprudence and culture is at the root of many of our ills. Groupthink is deadening, to the individual spirit and thence to the nation; individualism brings the liberty of independent action balanced by the social contract of individual responsibility. And from independent action come new ideas, astonishing works of art, amazing acts of generosity, true sacrifice and compassion, competition and cooperation.

Progress, in other words.

As my correspondent suggested in that letter, we should name names, first among yesteryear’s Soviet elite, then among today's corporate-statist media elite, and see what's what, who's who and, most importantly to some people, who is what. T believes many will be Jewish.

I'm not so sure. But I am sure that it doesn't matter much; when gauging threats to my well-being, race is a far less accurate predictor than ideology. Tell me that there's a Jew looking for me, and that could mean anyone from the likes of Milton Friedman (yay) to Mickey Cohen (yikes).

But if Agents of the Republicratic New World Order are after me, it does't matter if these brain police are Catholic, Jewish, atheist or animist.

They will lock me up.

And, yep, they will take my wallet.