Up through the history of mankind, ideologies have risen and fallen. Often born out of good intention, ideas have the nasty habit of growing into dogmatic and rigid structures that rule and destroy the lives of anyone who does not obey. We have seen this countless times. Both communism and nazism are obvious examples from modern times. Staying within Europe, the Catholic church held entire populations hostage under a tyrannical and brutal governmental structure for centuries. Anyone with a measurable IQ can clearly see that Islamic theocracies still hold such positions and the suffering they cause is vast and horrible. And don’t come to me with the “That’s not the real ___ (fill in your favourite religion/ideology here)!” If practically every single country that uses that religion/ideology is a brutal hellhole, that is how that religion/ideology works in real life and everything else is just words.

What we’re really talking about here, is collectivism and its cousin statism. The idea that the group matters more than the individual is probably humankind’s very first idea and it rose out of necessity in small hunter-gatherer groups. Today, the collectivist mindset is present in every single country on the planet. We pay taxes and are punished if we do not. In fact, the punishment of not paying taxes is often much tougher than for violent offences. Mainstream media, who is supposed to be watching those in power, constantly pushes the dogma of the society and the ruling system it serves. Even your local community, your friends and sometimes family keep an eye on you and make sure to punish you by either harsh words and/or making you a pariah if you don’t keep within the rules and limitations of your society.

It seems quite obvious to me that the larger the body of such a hive mind becomes, the less it cares of each individual. Politicians pushing a globalist agenda by sacrificing the needs of the individual should not be forgiven. Not tomorrow, not ever. Looking at my own continent, Europe, the arrogance of the globalist “elite” is quite astounding and understandably provoking. But it makes sense to treat people as parts of groups, at least for anyone who wants to rule them. Also, a population conditioned to care more about the group than the individual is quite easy to control. All you have to do, is to give them some entertainment, keep them fed and convince them, on a regular basis, that all other groups are worse off than them. Censor the opposition and ridicule anyone who still has a mind of his/her own. When the group expands, redefine the group. For example: We’re all Norwegians -> We’re all Europeans -> We’re all human beings. A collectivist population can easily be nudged into redifining their identity if the right words are used.

Also, a collectivist group can quite easily be convinced that going to was is a good idea. Keep in mind that no individual has ever gone to war. Only groups of people do that. Military traning is at its basic level designed to reduce individual thinking and encourage group thinking. You walk the same way. You eat the same food. You dress the same way. You say the same words. You’re not a person, you’re part of a group.

Now, I could go on and on here. The examples of how our societies are geared towards group thinking are many. The collectivist mindset is at the core of every large scale ill-doing in human history, and that is why I believe that collectivism, especially in its more developed and structured form statism is the most dangerous ideology mankind has ever seen. No politician will ever call themselves statists, but it is easy to see that many of them are exactly that. They believe in more power to the state and less freedom for the individual. But is it all that bad? Wouldn’t everything be easier if we would all come along and be friends and allies? Well, people don’t work that way. A healthy society needs people to disagree and it needs freedom of speech, that’s a main ingredient of both freedom and human progress. Let me tell you, I am annoyed by hearing people I totally disagree with go on and on with their arguments, just as I’m sure you are. But I understand that my freedom depends on those people having a voice. Your commitment to freedom is tested when you are asked to hand over the microphone to someone whose opinions you despise. Maybe that’s why freedom is never guaranteed, nor is it the natural state of any society. It is the curse of the long legged ape that we must always fight to maintain our freedom.

-Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen