Standing Alone
It’s not easy, or fun, but I think there’s actually something positive about having practice being pretty much alone and isolated as far as what you believe in. Basically, if you figure out what you believe in, and stick by what you believe in, when you have little or no support from others for doing so, it’s a good test and exercise of your convictions. If you are certain in your conclusions, and stand by your beliefs, when everyone around you disagrees—or even insults and condemns you for it—then you know that you have the fortitude and principle to not sell out, or be bullied or badgered into betraying what you believe in.
In contrast, those people who will cheer for some cause or idea only as long as lots of other people around them are cheering for the same thing, don’t really know yet if they would have the strength of their convictions if they were alone. So many people, in so many ways, will bend to peer pressure, or will either change their mind or just remain silent if their opinions don’t receive praise and approval from others. That’s just how human psychology works, and it takes a heavy dose of conviction and/or stubbornness (there can be a fine line between those two) to overcome that.
If someone’s “beliefs” are the result of fear, or popularity contests, or any other outside influence, instead of the result of personal contemplation and soul-searching, then that person is likely to change his “beliefs” at the drop of a hat, because he has no real principles or convictions. (A prime example of this is the people who formerly claimed to believe in true freedom, but who then ran to the “alt-right” camp.)
The good news about this otherwise annoying phenomenon is that, as the ideas of self-ownership and non-aggression spread, a lot of people who are now statists will become voluntaryists, precisely because they don’t have any real convictions or principles making them believe in statism to begin with—they only have assumptions and “what everyone else thinks.”
To put it another way, when even a significant minority of the population actually understands and advocates voluntaryist principles, the giant herd of conformists is going to move in that direction too, because at that point it will be easy and comfortable to do so. However, what starts such a movement is always those stubborn, bull-headed “extremists” who know what they know, and think what they think, whether anyone else agrees with them or not. Be one of those people.
The masses will follow whatever the current trend is, and voluntaryism will inevitably become trendy. It's a shame they won't reach such conclusions through logic, rationale and self-reflection, but fuck it, I'll take it.
My sentiments exactly.
I'm not so sure. We seem to be surrounded by a vast majority of people who demand a ruler.
that's only because they believe in the belief in "authority" if you change their mind they won't be demanding a ruler in the first place they would be ruling themselves.
I'm surrounded by religious zealots who demand a king and want me to be ruled by the same king. I'm not sure those people can be convinced to rule themselves.
The idea is wonderful, but people have to want to change. We cannot make them.
Larken's work is excellent in that regard for example, but the person has to want to change. This is something built into our humanity perhaps, and I do not see an easy solution.
That is why my usual question remains how do we, those who do not want to be ruled, find a way to coexist with a vast majority of others, who do want to be ruled? There will always be a small minority who will gladly rule too.
How do we break that system or at least find a way to peacefully live side by side with it?
As soon as 3 more people upvote this, I'll upvote it too.
lol Wise-ass.
smart one
We need a voluntaryist head count.
I've also heard it put 'if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.' lol
another great post
Hello Larken,
This is my first comment ever on steemit, and you are the primary motivator that drew me here. You can expect to find my comments often and I tend to write incessantly. Also in the course of time that will pass, if you ever are visited by a thought that perhaps I can support your efforts in a non-monetary way please don't hesitate to ask. I will certainly direct support to you from any steem rewards that find their way to me. However I am long in the tooth (age 59) homesteading below the IRS tax filing threshold, Father to a wonderful self-reliant daughter born with cerebral palsy whom I am proud to say is my hero. While I have great freedom in deciding what I want to do, when I want to do it and with whom I want to do it with, the nature of fighting the Cult Of Statism beast is in starving it. Ever since Justice Roberts exceeded his "authority" in rewriting the Obamacare statute my wife and I took taxable income out of our life. 2018 opens a new strategic plan with the individual mandate repealed. One battle won and this gnarly old woodchuck remains committed to the pursuit of infinite truth.
And so I find myself peering into your post "standing alone" with more to say than I should ever write. I have a nagging thought in my head of a recurrent memory of Adam Kokesh telling you that "philosophy" is pragmatic while attempting contrast per his campaign as somehow being "not pragmatic". If ever an event illustrated the difference between sophistry and philosophy that was it. I was puzzled how you "stood alone" and in my opinion showered Adam with generosity for not simply disarming his sophistry with the simple statement: "pragmatism is aversion to principle, but thanks for the irony". The appeals for shelter from the truth disguised as appeal for earned tolerance and respect was beneath the bar I envision. Anyway I had to get that nagging comment released from my mind and hopefully you can see the context of the event and "standing alone" relevant to my direct appreciation for this post. I'll now progress to some thoughts deeper in stance.
I'm inclined to characterize myself as a misanthrope, curmudgeonly and firmly rooted. There is no right way to do something wrong so I walk the fringes of society preferring the company of chickens to the local population. My intolerance isn't their fault, I was literally raised in a basement, index fingers broken as an infant. My birth father died in flight as the airplane failed to gain altitude and took the mountain in Guam. Mom was home hanging decorations for his return celebration as he was discharged from the Navy. I was 18 months old, my sister Cindy was 3 and Mom was pregnant with my brother Michael. I've never spent any time wondering what might have been different if Father had lived. Until I was 17 years old I went hungry and did what I could to avoid fists of my stepdad (my Father's co-captain in high school football) and the ever increasing madness that was all I ever knew of my Mother. Consequently as result of hardening and self discipline, I've always been told that I expect too much out of most people. However if I was any less, I wouldn't have survived. My sister Cindy is dead from suicide committed in her adult years having never recovered from a stolen childhood. Michael last I saw was diminished living an entitlement life on VA psych disability and my other siblings (I won't name) whom my stepdad fathered have survived but escaped little to none of the same hell on earth.
Given the details I've shared, you may perceive that I've been blessed with a concentrated view of dysfunction on a collective scale where the "family" was the trees of the forest beyond. I walked out of my "parent's" house 3 days after turning 17 years old with nothing but a gym bag of clothes. I stayed in high school and worked nights as a janitor. My senior year I shared an apartment and bought a 1964 Triumph Spitfire for $75 and a box of records. By the age of 20 we had our first child (Joe) and we married 2 years later 1981. Erica was born 1983. Today April 1st is our 37th year anniversary and we went steady 8 years before we married. In this way it seems we are still standing alone.
I'll have to pull my arm back lest I write into the next dawn. In closing I'll say that I'm grateful for finding zero struggle in maintaining my choices of living straight edge, no tobacco, no alcohol, no drugs (not even an aspirin) despite living in chronic pain from herniated discs from an MVA where I was hit by a drunk driver in 1990. The pain and fatigue is complicated worse by the geoengineering activities over my head at the farm, but I can express how grateful I am to still wave a chainsaw and be bonded to the earth homesteading, living the country life. It's looking grim but I have no evidence that the cosmos is absent intelligent life or spirit to intervene. I've been wearing a yellow and black flag t-shirt everyday 24/7 for years now and that ain't gonna change. I welcome discussion with others when common ground appears, but I hold firm in my perception that it's irrational to seek the conversion of others. Enlightenment can not be withheld or given away, it can only be accepted from within. Eckhart Tolle wrote that out clearly from common sense and there really is no separateness, but I stand alone. Hmm...guess I gotta spin up the Jackyl album with that old tune. Thanks for your patience in reading my words. Oh yea, the details I share in my post are calculated risk deliberate. Don't give it a second thought, I know exactly what I'm doing.
Woodchuck Pirate
aka Raymond J Raupers JR USA
Live your beliefs, and the world is already what you've made it. Excellent post.
Whistling, clapping and virtually slapping you on the back, Larken. As ever, you are the voice of reason...