Review of Individualism: A Reader

This review first appeared on my own blog, The Jolly Libertarian on March 10, 2017 and was reprinted at the Foundation for Economic Education on March 16, 2017. 

Wow! George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore have done a terrific job compiling this varied selection of essays on individualism. Some of the writers may be known to the general public - people like John Stuart Mill, Oscar Wilde, Michel de Montaigne, St. Augustine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Robert G. Ingersoll. Others may be known to libertarians and anarchists - people like Lysander Spooner, Auberon Herbert and Josiah Warren. But many more are relatively obscure and may be new to the reader. They were to me.

The book is divided into six categories - individuality, social individualism, moral individualism, political individualism, religious individualism and economic individualism. There is, of course, some overlap between them.

In the introduction by George H. Smith, he discusses the origins of the term and some of its critics. He quotes Tocqueville to the effect that "that word 'individualism' was unknown to our ancestors, for the good reason that in their days every individual necessarily belonged to a group and no one could regard himself as an isolated unit." It was often used as an epithet, a term of derision, and "has retained its negative connotations to this day among both conservative and socialist intellectuals, whose criticisms have much in common."

The essays themselves range from a short two pages to twenty-nine pages. There are twenty-six altogether, all by different authors. The quality of the essays vary. A few are a bit arcane, but the vast majority are lucid to the modern reader. And more than  a few are brilliant and inspiring.

One of the early essays to impress me was "Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-being" by John Stuart Mill. It's one of the chapters from his famous book, On Liberty. In it he gives a resounding defense of eccentricity, the right to be different. And more, the importance of letting people be different. It is what defines character and sometimes genius. "One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character. If, in addition to being his own, his impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that individuality of desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must maintain that society has no need of strong natures - is not the better for containing many persons who have such character - and that a high general average of energy is not desirable."

The book only gets better from there. I particularly enjoyed the following:

• an entry by Oscar Wilde from The Soul of Man Under Socialism 
• the excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 
• an eclectic entry criticizing state and religion sanctioned marriage from Moses Harman
• an excerpt defending sexual freedom from Social Bliss Considered: In Marriage and Divorce; Cohabiting Unmarried, and Public Whoring by Peter Annet (published in 1749)
• excerpts from True Civilization by the libertarian Josiah Warren on self-sovereignty and voluntary individualism. Published in 1868, this passage anticipates much of the later writings of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and other luminaries of the modern libertarian movement.
• an excellent essay on property rights by Thomas Hodgskin
• a superb attack on slavery by Angelina E. Grimke from Letters to Catherine E. Beecher; in Reply to An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism.  This essay is short but brilliant. She calls slavery "man-stealing".
• a stirring defense of voluntaryism from Auberon Herbert's The Voluntaryist Creed. He admonishes politicians of all stripes. "Why should you desire to compel others; why should you seek to have power - that evil, bitter, mocking thing, which has been from of old, as it is today, the sorrow and curse of the world - over your fellow men and fellow women?" This is a powerful piece of writing, a ringing denunciation of the use of force and fraud in society. It is also very much a precursor of modern libertarian writings.
• a strong endorsement of reason over mysticism in an excerpt from Free Thought - Its Conditions, Agreements, and Secular Results by George Jacob Holyoake
• a ringing defense of individuality and independent mind against religious orthodoxy from Robert G. Ingersoll. Known as "The Great Infidel", Ingersoll was a renowned orator and abolitionist in the 19th Century. Encouraging people to stand on their own convictions, he writes, "Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute." He invokes a mythical traveler "over the vast plain called life" and asks, which path shall he choose. Independent thinkers take their own path. "These travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others as infidels and atheists." But they are true heroes. "Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night." One wonders if Ingersoll inspired Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. 
• the longest passage is called A Catechism of Individualism by Henry Wilson. It is a response to A New Catechism of Socialism by Belfort Bax. Written as a series of questions and answers, this little gem is a solid explanation of the fallacies of socialist economics. 

To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement. I loved it. It explores the entire range of individualist thinking including individuality, property, self-sovereignty, the rights of women, the proper use of force in society, free thought and more.

I leave you with this excerpt from The Dominant Idea by individualist-feminist Voltairine de Cleyre in which she urges people to commit to the cause of freedom and not be seduced by the dominant idea of her age, materialism. Make freedom your dominant idea. This call to arms would actually have made a good closing essay for the book rather than being included in the section on social individualism.

"If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest, then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps, the strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom, will become easy.

"Let us have Men, Men who will say a word to their souls and keep it - keep it when it is not easy, but keep it when it is hard - keep it when the storm roars and there is a white-streaked sky and blue thunder before, and one's eyes are blinded and one's ears deafened with the war of opposing things; and keep it under the long leaden sky and the gray dreariness that never lifts. Hold unto the last: that is what it means to have a Dominant Idea."

Some of my future essays will certainly reference this work and I may publish some of the shorter ones on my blog since they are all public domain. I highly recommend this book.

Who is George H. Smith?

A more elaborate question might be "Who is George H. Smith and why did I put together this bibliography of his writings?"

My reason for putting together this bibliography is that I have found George to be a stimulating, thoughtful and very knowledgeable writer on libertarianism and libertarian ideas. He is an accomplished and well-read philosopher and his essays are always cogent and highly readable. And he is a gentleman scholar. He writes forthrightly but without rancor.

But he is also very prolific. So prolific that his writings are a valuable resource, but not always easy to navigate. So I put the bibliography together for selfish reasons, so I could more easily find material George may have written on any particular subject. Such a resource already exists for Ayn Rand's writings as the Ayn Rand Lexicon. This resource is different as I don't quote George, just link to relevant essays on specific topics.

I haven't read all of his writings, but have read five of his books. These are: Atheism: The Case Against God; Atheism, Ayn Rand and Other Heresies; Individualism: A Reader (of which he is the co-editor and writer of the introduction); The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism; and Self-Interest and Social Order in Classical Liberalism. I have read a number of his essays but have barely scratched the surface.

George H. Smith discovered libertarianism as I did, through the writings of Ayn Rand. Like myself, the first book of hers he read was non-fiction - in his case, The Virtue of Selfishness, in mine, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. While he has parted ways with Rand in some respects (notably in embracing anarchism and in finding good things to say about Immanuel Kant), he still recognizes the insight and value of her writings and treats her with respect, even when disagreeing with her. So many of Rand's critics within the movement don't show this quality of character and like to trash her. One of the reasons I like George's writing - his fairness and objectivity.

Smith made a name for himself in the nascent libertarian movement with the publication of Atheism: The Case Against God in 1979. It remains the best book ever written on atheism despite the raft of books from the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett). This is mostly due to his approach, which is philosophical. Much of the other writing on atheism is polemical, an attack on religion, rather than a thoughtful analysis.

Atheism, Ayn Rand and Other Heresies is a more personal book detailing some of his personal and philosophical background. I lent the book to someone long ago and haven't got it back or I'd say more about it. I do remember his fascinating discussion of visiting many churches of different denominations to try and get a handle on their views before writing Atheism.

I reviewed Individualism: A Reader and will post that review here tomorrow as my second post.

The System of Liberty is must-read for any libertarian in my opinion. I have used it as a reference work in the poli-sci courses I am taking. It has some intriguing insights, including a rehabilitation of Robert Filmer as a proponent of anarchism. While Filmer's intent was to ridicule classical liberalism by using anarchism as a reductio as absurdum of the liberal position, he actually presents a solid case for anarchism. Filmer, you may recall, was the target of John Locke's First Treatise of Government.

The bibliography so far contains all of his essays at libertarianism.org. I have added a few others including some from Mises.org and The Journal for Libertarian Studies. I will be adding others as I come across them and as time permits. Notably his essays at The Voluntaryist, an organization he co-founded with Wendy McElroy and Carl Watner in 1982.

George never finished university but he continued his education independently. He is an autodidact of distinction in that respect, so much so that he has been published in scholarly publications and his book, The System of Liberty, was published by Cambridge University Press.

I had the privilege of meeting George in person in 1996 at the annual conference of the International Society for Individual Liberty held at Whistler, B.C. I was one of the organizers of the event. George's topic was Historical Perspective on Revolution and Resistance to Authority, the second speaker on the last day of the event (Yes, I still have the Program Schedule!)

Undoubtedly I will find the occasional point of disagreement with George, especially as my own views have been in flux for a few years now and I find myself drifting away from orthodox libertarianism in some respects (if libertarianism can be said to have an orthodoxy). Nevertheless his insights are valuable to me and I hope, to any who may investigate his writings further.

An essay that gives some insight into George's mind and why he writes is one he wrote on the occasion of his third anniversary at libertarianism.org. He called it My Third Anniversary Cerebration (sic) It was also his 150th essay there. In it he talks about the conflict between pragmatism and ideology. He discusses the importance of understanding the historical background to libertarianism. He expresses surprise that there are some libertarians who have never read John Locke's Second Treatise, "arguably the most important and influential book on liberty ever written".

George concludes the essay with these words:

"The Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century, which was an enthusiastic revival of Greek philosophy, science, and literature, paved the way for the Scientific Revolution. The European mind was stimulated to move forward by looking backward at the finest intellectual culture ever produced in the Western World, that of ancient Greece.

"As libertarians we look forward to a revolution in liberty, but this lies somewhere in the future. We are currently in our renaissance stage, attempting to restore the lost or forgotten ideas of our predecessors. The intellectual culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period rich in libertarian ideas, is to our renaissance what the culture of ancient Greece was to the Italian Renaissance—the source of our inspiration and the foundation of our future progress.

"I suggest that libertarians can best move forward by first looking backward and rediscovering the intellectual gems that were bequeathed to us by our libertarian progenitors, who were more advanced than we are, theoretically speaking, in several major areas."

I can think of no better way to rediscover these intellectual gems, short of reading the primary sources, than by reading George H. Smith's account of them.

The Bibliography is divided into categories: Books, Essays, and Videos. I listed a few videos when I started but decided to abandon that and get all his written work catalogued first. Also linked in the menu at the right are some of his series, ones that included ten or more essays. But the best way to make use of this bibliography is to click on Essays, find a topic of interest, and follow the link. There you'll find links to George's informed and well-researched thoughts on the topic. Enjoy!

Postscript: Readers are invited to send me any links to articles of George's not yet catalogued in the bibliography. My email is marcoden77 at gmail dot com.