Objectivists and Collective Guilt

Objectivists and Collective Guilt
by Nathan Hawking

Where do you really stand on the principles of individualism?

Ayn Rand wrote:

"Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to the group -- whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action ..."

When it comes to asserting our own personal rights and value apart from some designated group, Objectivists and libertarians are generally clear on this issue. We are, however, sometimes not so clear how this applies to others.

The Doctrine of Collective Guilt

The notion of collective guilt is an old one. A multitude of Biblical passages refer to guilt for the sins of some being applied to families and whole nations. This was often cited as justification for the extermination of thousands of men, women, and children--events and stories which have repercussions to this day.

Today, collective guilt is sometimes invoked as moral justification for unrestrained warfare, destruction with complete disregard for civilian lives.

While extreme collateral damage is sometimes arguably necessary, say for the prevention of even more loss of life in a protracted conflict, I would persuade you that the doctrine of collective guilt is NOT among the rational justifications--not for individualists.

(I will not argue in this essay against the advocacy of virtually unlimited and unrestrained force, just against the invocation of collective guilt as a justification for whatever level of force is chosen.)

Rationalizations of Collective Guilt

'The populace supported (this or that government).'
'People get the government they deserve.'

A recent SOLO article about warfare said:

" ... the civilian population of the enemy is not necessarily innocent. They are guilty in their support an immoral government and proffer their labor to the enemy's war effort."

These are pronouncements of collective guilt.

Such views are not always mere idle utterances of armchair philosophers, discussing faraway wars in times past. They are, as we shall see, sometimes also the views of men holding guns and of those shaping policy.

What about that reasoning? Do people "get the government they deserve"?

What an oft-quoted and potent piece of politico-philosophical rhetoric! Unfortunately, it is, invoked in this context, also a collectivist fallacy.

Sometimes 49% of the people get the government the other 51% percent want. Sometimes 90% of the people get the government that the 10% with more weapons want.

"The 'populace' voted for that government"? Really?

The Collective Guilt of Germans

Even in Nazi Germany, for example, many Germans were opposed to Hitler and his policies. Some, including military officers, lost their lives heroically trying to assassinate him. Are we to believe that the families of those men, including their innocent children, are somehow stained with a collective German bloodguilt? That they "deserved" to die in a Dresden holocaust?

In 1933 the Nazi party received a 44% vote, and only gained control of the Reichstag through a coalition with another party. Within months, through a series of adroit political maneuvers, Hitler managed to gain complete authoritarian control.

Rarely does any government have universal consent, especially one as odious as the Nazi regime.

One can make a case that in war, collateral damage and deaths are unavoidable, but not on the basis of a collective guilt argument.

The Collective Guilt Chickens
Come Home to Roost

This is a simple concept. Any claim holding a person culpable for the behavior of another because they share a race, nationality, religion, or region, etc., is a collectivist argument.

That's fine if you're a collectivist or a statist. For an individualist who holds individual human life in high regard, though, taking that view is a fundamental contradiction.

Shall we consider all Americans collectively guilty of the crime of slavery?

I do not.

Many were opposed to slavery from the outset. That they chose peaceful means, for the better part of a century, to attempt to abolish it does not mean they "got the government they deserved." It means that they were in the effective minority and chose lawful 'redress of grievances.'

Sometimes moral minorities do not prevail. That is a fact of human existence. To assert that this is invariably due to some character flaw is patently absurd. To assert that a moral minority gets "the government they deserve" to imply collective guilt is an insult to the memory of those who opposed slavery, among other evils.

It boils down to this: Do we see people as INDIVIDUALS, as true proponents of a philosophy of individualism should, or do we collectivize individuals as "the populace" or "the masses" or "the workers" or "the bloodguilty" when it suits our purposes, like any Marx or Stalin or Mao?

That is precisely what a doctrine of collective guilt does, and this is why those who hold individualism among their highest values should oppose the idea in unequivocal terms.

If collective guilt, then why not collective ownership for all property?

A Brutal Example

If collective guilt, then the massacre at My Lai, the machine-gunning by American forces of hundreds of mostly women, children and the elderly--herded into ditches--was justified.

If collective guilt, then Colburn and Andreotta were traitors when they pointed their weapons at fellow American soldiers and managed to rescue a dozen villagers, not heroes who were eventually awarded the Soldier's Medal for their actions.

What would you have done in the village of My Lai:

executed hundreds of those you held collectively guilty of harboring Viet Cong,
or defended the INDIVIDUAL lives of those who may have had nothing to say about events in their village?

The doctrine of collective guilt has far-reaching ethical consequences, and where we stand defines who we really are as individualists, nominal or genuine, and who we are as human beings.

Nathan Hawking

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