I’ll admit that I am off-put by how some libertarians gather around iconic figures (Ron Paul to a certain extent, Stefan Molyneux, and Ayn Rand being the three major “cult” figures). There does seem to be a lot of hero worship because, let’s face it, anti-statism is a fringe ideology at this point in history and it will attract fringe people.
Lately, I was accused of being involved in a cult (anarcho-capitalism) that “has a lot of money behind it.” I guess I don’t know why I was taking this guy seriously because he:
A. Assumed the Columbus taking over the West Indies was justified by libertarian property theory
B. Thought that someone enslaving somebody who happened to trespass was defensible by libertarian theory
C. Thinks the Libertarian Party is primarily an anarchist organization and that the Kochs promote most of the an-capism.
D. Thinks the IMF and American foreign policy is representative of what an-caps want in practice.
Anyway, I was thinking what exactly it means to be a cult? Tom Woods wrote a really good piece on the Ron Paul following being labeled a cult. Some followers are stupid, but there are stupid followers of every campaign. I think being involved in a cult would require someone actively defending a position or set of principles without rationally analyzing the principles upon their adoption and then actively discouraging any form of dissent, usually around a cult figure. I really don’t see that with an-capism. On this board, I find that many of us are into rational argument and will engage in discussion with other types of worldviews. I don’t think it is a sheltered cult like this guy was postulating.
In it’s pop usage “cult” is a smear word. And more over, everyone is trained to use smear words and than throw in some disconnected drivel when using the words (liberterians do it all the time to).
Libertarianism, as a whole, is no more a cult than any other philosophical doctrine. Scientology is a cult, Christianity is not. Islam is a cult, Judaism is not. Pretty simple.
As compared with what? The millions of dollars Hillary Clinton gets from blood-soaked weapons contractors who pimp for Musharaf? The $57 milion the Democrats get from ActBlue? All the cash Obama has received from Big Pharma or Goldman Sachs? How about the $624 million BP has donated to various environmental groups (which vehemently protest nuclear energy, to the delight of Big Oil)?
It was actually a libertarian, Samuel Edward Konkin III, who coined the term “Kochtopus”. No big corporations donate to the Mises Institute because it doesn’t do contract work. And I don’t really think “corporate shill” when I think of Sheldon Richman or David Friedman. You can tell just by looking at most ancaps that they’re barely paid, let alone on a payroll. In fact, libertarians have done more work outlining and opposing corporatism than anyone else.
I think part of the definition of “cult” is that its members can’t criticize each other. That would certainly be true of Ayn Rand’s inner circle. Is it true of Austrians or libertarians? No, they criticize each other all the time.
Stefan Molyneux once said something useful about the “cult” accusation. Granted it was in the context of an interview with the Zeitgeist people, but it’s still worth watching.
I see a lot of admiration for Rothbard around these parts, but there is debate on certain parts of his philosophy. He articulated the most sound concept of libertarianism to this date in a lot of people’s opinion, so he does get a lot of respect. As for cultish behavior, like I said, I don’t think they uncritically adopted Rothbard’s version of libertarianism and I don’t think they suppress dissent in any way whatsoever. They may be “loyal” to Rothbardianism or sympathetic to it, but that only means they agree with it. Intense agreement isn’t cultish in my opinion.
Now a lot of the Randians come off as dogmatists, a segment of the Ron Paul following is obsessed with his candidacy and take his word as gospel, and a quick visit to the Free Domain Radio forums will confirm any suspicion you may have. Now, unlike most of these dullards who think that fans of something who exhibit cult behavior automatically makes this something wrong, I think Objectivism, Ron Paul’s platform, and UPB or Molyneux’s ideas should be criticized on their own merits.
How is it cultish to basically be the only person completely following the teachings of a dead intellectual hero? I have at least some disagreements with essentially all other Libertarians, and am so Rothbardian that I even disagree at times with fellow Rothbardians. (For instance, one of my Rothbardian friends denies proportionate punishment; others deny an objective, deontological morality strictly based upon the Non-Aggression Axiom).
As far as I know, I am the only person - or one of very few - who follows Murray so entirely. And a cult requires a group mentality, so I don’t see how I could possibly be considered a cultish. Not to mention that “cults” and “groups” are only metaphors for the actions of various specific individuals.
Are you asking why it isn’t cultish or dogmatic to lionize another human being and then follow his teachings as a sort of dogma?
Well, considering your debate in a previous thread involved a total misunderstanding of what an axiom is then I can’t blame other “Rothbardians” (ideologies or factions based exclusively around the teachings of one individual always seemed bizarre to me) for abandoning the non-aggression “axiom”.
Noun
1.
cult of personality - intense devotion to a particular person
Most everyone here understands and adheres to methodological individualism, so when we use catch-all phrases like “Germany fought America in WWII” we do so to save ourselves from the much more laborious and convoluted statement, “Members of the American Congress passed a declaration of war on the nation of Germany which was then carried through by individuals in the Joint Chiefs of Staff…”. The same goes for when we speak of “cults”.
Rcder - I was merely sharing my thoughts that a cult, by definition, cannot consist of one, isolated individual. I am one of very few strict Rothbardians. That means that I am not part of a cult (as in, knowingly part of a group centred around Rothbard). There may be others such as myself, but I don’t know them, so how could that be cultish by definition?
And, ha, you misunderstand the nature of Non-Aggression as an axiom. But I don’t want to talk about it, as I did not intend to cause conflict.
There are plenty of Rothbardians that are cultish just like Randians, etc. Generally, they are the people that will quote/reference Rothbard any chance they get in a political debate, for example. Just because they don’t agree on one specific detail compared to another does not make them any less dogmatic.
Sadly this is what the word cult has come to, to reference jackasses by snobbier jackasses, but it only seems so in a negative sense. If you are involved in rather cultish practices you might as well embrace it. Hell, it seems the whole of Christianity is the Cult of Christ, but if you tell a Christian they are involved in a cult they’d flip out on you.
An-cap is not a cult. It has none of the traits of a cult. By the dictionary definition of a cult, an cap has nothing to do with a cult. However it is open to be exploited and it could very well be used by an individual to start a cult, like any other ideology, twisted and changed and made in to a cult. I think in general some people just have a tendency to be fans of whatever they are interested in. They lack the ability to do anything else, school, religion, tv and sports all make fans out of people. There is a big focus on worship and idol-ism that’s comes out of religion and tv and schools. So i think it would be wise to be weary of people that try and use this information or any for that matter to try and create a following that is specific to them and not about the information.
But for people like Stefan Molyneux and Ron Paul, they are always repeating the fact that it is not about them and it is about the message, it is about liberty and sound money etc. This is admirable and far more than the political leaders of the opposing side who tend to feed off being an idol, off their celebrity status. For them (the status quo politicians) it is far more about them and far less about their message and ideology.
That might have been an allusion to the imperial cult of Barbarossa/Frederick II. And he did have very cultish organisations supporting him, such as the Thule Society.
Anyway, Rothbard said that libertarianism was “sectarian” by nature. It’s inevitable if you believe unorthodox things, and believing unorthodox things is inevitable if you want to believe the truth.
The world is controlled by cults. Those who know the truth, and control the perception of the masses…
I don’t think we can compare liberty and sound money to a egocentric totalitarian, vision for or view of society. I have also never heard of nazi-ism as referred to as a cult, therefore it is irrelevant in this context. However I do appreciate the point.