Ilya Somin recently
reflected on the influence of Ayn Rand. I was
particularly struck by this passage:
In becoming a libertarian without any influence
from Rand, I was actually unusual. Over the last 15
years, I have met a large number of libertarian
intellectuals and activists of the last two
generations, including some of the most famous. More
often than not, reading Rand influenced their conversion
to libertarianism, even though very few
fully endorse her theories or consider themselves
Objectivists.
Emphasis added.
I have noticed that many self-identifying libertarians
relate their ideological development in religious
language that would be
familiar to evangelical Christians. Once were blind,
they now could see the falsehood of statist
assumptions and the truth of individual liberty and
responsibility.
Perhaps I spend too much time with libertarians, but I
don't often see conservatives describe a similar
political awakening as strongly, and I can't recall
hearing liberals express a political conversion
experience in this manner.
It makes me uneasy. I know from personal experience
how damaging it is to adopt an ideology as a personal
identity. Ideologies as identities have a way of
stifling objective thought along the lines of "This is
who I am now, this is my ideology, and I will now
apply it to all situations or questions that I have
about the world."
Ideologies blindly applied to the world, without
regard to conflicts between what can and is
objectively known about a topic and what the
ideology's stance on that topic is, constitute sloppy
thinking.
If you shook me awake at 2 AM and asked me if I
thought that we should legalize all drugs for
consenting adults, I'd probably say yes. But that's
because my ideology would provide me with a shortcut
around thinking critically about all aspects of an
issue.
If I was awake and had time to think about the
question a little more, I'd probably say that
marijuana should definitely be legalized, but maybe
crack cocaine shouldn't. Maybe the effects of that
drug are so debilitating that we shouldn't go that
far.
But that takes work, and I could avoid all of that
simply by thinking "I'm a libertarian, so how should I
respond to this question in a manner that is
consistent with my ideology?"
Or to use a different example, "I'm a believer in
religion X, so how should I respond to this question
in a manner that is consistent with my religion?"
One need only glance at the pages of history to know
how flawed ideologies can be. Which is why I get
uncomfortable with libertarians expressing their
political opinions using the certainty of religious
language.
I generally identify myself as a libertarian. But not
with a lot of enthusiasm. Well, at least not as much
as I used to. I don't want to be a libertarian; I want
to be a correct thinker. And that means keeping my
options open. It means seeking truth instead of an
ideological identity or tribe.
Instead of saying "I'm a libertarian," it would be
better for one to say "I am a thinker and I have
reached many libertarian conclusions." The goal should
always be truth, not fidelity to an ideological
identity.
