I'm continuing my reporting on the next installment from Conservative Estimate, the recently founded website that is devoted to demolishing Conservatism.
Yesterday, Alfred George completed his discussion of the Myth of Competition with a note about the thinkers who are challenging the Myth, and with advice about how we can all resist the power of the Myth.
Today, Mr. George begins to discuss a new topic, the Myth of Independence, which grows out of the other Myths that have been treated earlier. Today’s installment is a brief introduction that just makes a note of the complete impossibility of this Myth.
Just over the sinuous orange interlacings stands an account of today’s installment.
Mr. George begins by showing how the Myth of Independence emerges from the Myth of Scarcity, the Myth of Self-interest, and the Myth of Competition. Under the stress of believing that everyone is against them, Mythers come to feel that they can rely on no one but themselves, or perhaps some few very trusted family members or friends. This is what gives rise to their belief in the Myth of Independence: The strong succeed in life on their own. He comments on the nature of this Myth:
All the Major Myths are counterfactual, but this one is especially blind to nature of reality. It arises as a sort of outgrowth in the mind of someone who has been convinced of the previous three Myths. . . .
But this fourth Myth adds a new note, insisting that people survive the onslaught produced by the first three Myths by their own efforts alone, or at most, by the efforts of a small team of like-minded individuals. Indeed, Mythers often become completely enamored of this particular Myth. They come to take it for granted that they have come as far as they have without help, and that they can maintain themselves in the future without help.
Real life, Mr. George says, just isn’t like that. No one makes it in this world without someone else’s help or good will. It’s easy to focus on the indifference and opposition in life (of which there is plenty) and overlook the caring and assistance offered by others—especially if you have the habit of thinking more about yourself than about others.
Of course, if you are the kind of person who regards other people as dupes and stooges to be fleeced, you are more than likely to regard yourself as getting by without anyone else’s help. You think the rest of the world is against you, so you try to take them for all you can. But anyone who is not this cynical sees clearly how much they own to their families, their friends, their colleagues, and the organizations to which they belong. No one makes it alone.
The Myth of Independence is one of the great falsehoods of the modern world.
You can read the whole post
here.
Tomorrow Mr. George begins to dismantle this Myth, starting with the evidence of science and religion against it, and pointing to the greatest practical refutation of it—society itself.
I’ll be reporting back each day as a new installment appears.