Without Reason, Collectivism is the Default

In his inaugural speech, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Conservatives were quick to criticize Mamdani. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X, “The ‘warmth’ of collectivism that always requires coercion and force. How many dead over the past 100 years due to collectivist ideologies?” While the conservative critics are correct that collectivism is imposed by force and has led to the death of tens of millions of people, they ignore the fact that they too are collectivists.

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to the group—the race, the community, society. The MAGA movement subordinates individuals to the alleged well-being of the group—the nation. Whether it is forcing Americans to pay higher prices because of tariffs, forcibly detaining and deporting immigrants, or threatening businesses that fail to toe the MAGA line, to Trump and his supporters, the alleged well-being of the nation supersedes the rights of individuals.

How did America reach the point where both sides of the aisle embrace collectivism?

“Reason,” Ayn Rand wrote, “is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge—and, therefore, the rejection of reason means that men should act regardless of and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality.” Despite their proclamations to the contrary, the Left’s hysteria over climate change is but one example of its rejection of reason. Among conservatives, the growing influence of faith—the acceptance of an idea without evidence or despite the evidence—is an explicit rejection of reason.

In the Introduction to Return of the Primitive, Peter Schwartz writes, “With respect to human development, primitivism is pre-rational. It is a stage in which man lives in fearful awe of a universe he cannot understand.” And yet, he must take action if he wishes to survive.

Schwartz goes on to write,

If primitive man regards the world as unknowable, how does he decide what to believe and how to act? Since such knowledge is not innate, where does primitive man turn for guidance? To his tribe. It is membership in a collective that infuses such a person with his sole sense of identity. The tribe’s edicts thus become his unquestioned absolutes, and the tribe’s welfare becomes his fundamental value.

Primitive man has not discovered reason and everything reason makes possible. Modern man has discovered reason and rejected it. Having never discovered reason, primitive man turned to his tribe for guidance. Having rejected reason, modern man is increasingly turning to his tribe for the same purpose. Without reason as one’s guide, the world is mysterious and unknowable. Without reason, whether through ignorance or willful blindness, one turns to the tribe for guidance. Without reason, collectivism is the default.

The alternative to the collectivism of progressives isn’t the collectivism of MAGA. The alternative is individualism, the inalienable right of each individual to his own life and the pursuit of his own happiness. Individualism enables each individual to live with reason as his guide. Individualism, not collectivism, is what will truly make America great again.