RSS 2.0 FeedWe Are Individuals, Not Ants
by Doug MataconisElliot Spitzer was sworn in as Governor of New York today and had this rather disturbing comment in his Inaugural Address:
And so, together, we must strive to build One New York through a politics that operates on the principle that we rise or fall as one people and one state.
(…)
And so on this day of unbridled hope and possibility, I ask you to think not only of the challenges and aspirations that you hold in your own hearts, but of those that are held in the collective heart of New York.
In other words, forget about your individual hopes and dreams its the will of the volk people that matters. Professor Bainbridge puts it quite nicely, I think:
If freedom means anything, it means the right to opt out of being part of “one people, one state” and to go one’s own individual way. So when Eliot Spitzer asks “you to think not only of the challenges and aspirations that you hold in your own hearts, but of those that are held in the collective heart of New York,” I want to ask what happens when New York’s collective vision (as interpreted by Spitzer) tramples my individual vision?
We spent much of the 20th Century battling communitarian ideologies that subordinate the individual to the “people” and the “state.” Why then would Spitzer invoke just such rhetoric?
Perhaps because it’s what he truly believes.
Governor Spitzer is wrong, of course. The will of the majority of New Yorkers is no more relevant that the will of the majority of people sitting at the bar at my local Applebee’s on any given Tuesday. Spitzer’s rhetoric suggests that individuals are merely cogs in a vast machine to be used as society sees fit. Like drones being sent on their assigned tasks by the Ant Queen.
he doesn’t say to abandon your individual hopes, merely to also consider the needs of the many.
the assertion that this somehow relates to people being ants or cogs is simply ludicrous. there’s way too much extrapolation here for a minor quip made in a long speech. for example, i could pull another random sentence from his speech, like
“We must embrace a progressive vision of government once more – a vision that upholds the values of individuality and community; of entrepreneurship and opportunity; of responsibility and fairness.”
and then say that he is a crusader for individuality, but it proves little.
Comment by asdf — January 1, 2007 @ 10:36 pmHeh, except for the fact that a “progressive vision of government” is diametrically opposed to the values of individuality, entrepreneurship, opportunity, and responsibility.
Comment by mike — January 1, 2007 @ 11:14 pmHis excuse for real reform (ballot access, gerrymandered districts and other equally necessary electoral tweaking) will be how bad the system has become. Thus minor implementations will become great victory in the face of insurmountable protections. State union members will thus be protected from criticism and remain a valuable ally. Senate Republicans will go along to get along thus protecting their own threatened territory. Nominal growth in the rate of the budget increases will be rationalized in the forms of jobs and opportunity created by the ‘grant’ industry and such, all the while being protected by the ever present financial sectors and their inevitable growth. Pundits will caution impatient activists to be thankful he’s even their and Rudy, Hillary & George will traipse about the country convincing middle America that NY is like the rest of the US. At least BattleStar Galactica starts soon again.
Comment by Eric Sundwall — January 2, 2007 @ 6:09 pm