American Greatness: 'Towards the end of the book, Shafarevich contemplates the socialist ideal’s relationship to individuality. He writes: “all elements of the socialist ideal—the abolition of private property, family, hierarchies; the hostility toward religion—could be regarded as a manifestation of one basic principle: the suppression of individuality.” This may seem an obvious claim: that a collectivist, materialist ideology motivated by a death instinct would find an enemy in the individual, in individuality. What may not be so obvious are the tactics and lengths to which the socialists would go to grind their enemies down to level—how socialists would ultimately dynamite the mountains to fill the valleys.
'Shafarevich identifies some of the ways that socialist society would remedy that pesky individualism.
People would wear the same clothing and even have similar faces; they would live in barracks. There would be compulsory labor followed by meals and leisure activities in the company of the same labor battalion. Passes would be required for going outside. Doctors and officials would supervise sexual relations, which would be subordinated to only two goals: the satisfaction of physiological needs and the production of healthy offspring. Children would be brought up from infancy in state nurseries and schools. Philosophy and art would be completely politicized and subordinated to the education goals of the state. All this is inspired by one principle—the destruction of individuality or, at least, its suppression to the point where it would cease to be a social force.
'Shafarevich saw in socialism what Kuehnelt-Leddihn observed generally manifesting in leftist movements: the drive for sameness...' [Rest of the article HERE.]
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