No Problem For Individualists

I’ve always enjoyed Claire Wolfe’s style. She wrote, “America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.” [from: 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution, as I said in my old The Autonomist, article, [1904] “Shoot The Bastards?“

Claire has had, for some time, a new column on the Backwoods Home Magazine called, “Living Freedom,” which is described as “Musings About Personal Freedom—And Finding It Within Ourselves,” which certainly agrees with the views of the Free Individual.

In a recent series of articles, she addressed a subject that, in an oblique way, is a possible problem for individualists, but I think not in the way Claire addresses it. The series is “Defending boundaries,” “Defining boundaries, part II,” and “Defining boundaries, part III.”

This is how Claire describes what she calls “boundary issues:”

“If you frequently find yourself committing to do jobs you’d rather not, you’ve got boundary issues. If somebody gets away with constantly belittling you … boundary issue. If you feel you have to do something just because someone else will be disappointed in you if you don’t … boundary issue. If you feel you have to “comply” with unjust authority when your higher self tells you that a free person wouldn’t so easily give in … boundary issue.”

She gives some examples of what she considers are the difficulties with boundary issues:

“We find out that merely setting or stating the boundary is futile. The person who has been crossing our line—whatever our line may be—continues to push past it as if we never said a thing.”

“The friend who constantly imposes on our time keeps dropping in without notice. The boss who asks us to bend our ethics keeps nudging us to fudge our principles. The spouse who belittles us keeps on digging at our soul. The census taker shows up at our door after the fifth time we’ve said NO. The volunteer coordinator who keeps asking us to do just one more itty-bitty ‘Oh, I know you said … and I’m sorry to impose … but this won’t take up more than a few minutes of your time’ task keeps asking. Oh so politely. But still asking, even after you’ve laid down what you thought was a very firm NO.”

The reason we find it difficult to defend out own boundaries she says is that, “We work up all that nerve. We fear that we’ll lose a friend or make our boss mad or get in some kind of trouble when we finally work up the courage to set our boundary. …”

“So,” she says, “the question is: How do you defend that boundary without constant spirit-sapping stress or perpetual and unacceptable risk?”

It Is A Question Of Ethics

The truth is, none of these are issues for the independent individualist, and anyone who has such issues is not, or at least not yet, truly an independent individualist. Yet, I think a lot of individuals wrestle with just such, “problems.” If you read Claire’s series, it seems as though there a many different issues about “boundaries,” when in fact there is one central issue and if that one is settled, all the other’s disappear.

The one central issue is an ethical one.

A man’s mind is an attribute of his self, of that entity within him which is his consciousness. That entity can be called spirit. It can be called soul. It remains—no matter what its origin—a man’s self. His “I.” His ego.

To preserve the independence of his mind is man’s first moral duty. What choice is he to make when his thinking clashes with the thoughts, convictions, or desires of others? Such a clash occurs at every step of a man’s life. … What is man’s choice in such a conflict? It is a choice of authority. “I think” or “They tell me.” Whose authority is he to accept? Upon whose authority is he to act? Who must be placed first: his ego or other men?

The independence of man’s mind means precisely the placing of his ego above any and all other men on earth. It means acting upon the authority of his ego above any other authority. It means keeping his ego untouched, uninfluenced, uncorrupted, unsacrificed. In the realm of man’s mind, the placing of others about self is the one act of evil, the original sin.

[Adapted from “The Moral Basis Of Individualism,” The Journals of Ayn Rand, “Part 3 - Transition Between Novels.”]

There is only one, “boundary,” the boundary that defines one’s self, and no violation of that boundary is ever allowable. It simply means no other individual may intrude in any way in the life of another, no claim on any aspect of one’s life—one’s time, one’s effort, one’s resources, physical or spiritual—may be allowed. For the independent individualist, in all his relationships with others, this is a fundamental ethical principle.

Why should anyone ever have difficulty in living by this principle? Why should anyone ever have the kind of, “boundary issues,” described by Claire Wolfe? There is one cause, and it is always the same cause.

The Root Of Compromise

Short of a physical threat, what could possibly motivate someone to compromise their moral principles in submitting to the wishes, or demands, or dictates of another contrary to their own understanding of what is right?

It is certainly no rational argument that convinces an individual to violate their own values and principles. It is never reason, but that other motivator of human action, the feelings or emotions. Allow me to borrow again from Ayn Rand:

“Reason is man’s tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of reality. To act rationally means to act in accordance with the facts of reality. Emotions are not tools of cognition. [“The Playboy Interview,” March 1964.]

Except in the case of coercion, all violations of one’s self by others are allowed by the individual himself, and they are allowed, not because they are convinced by reason to allow that violation, but because they have some feeling that they submit to. An examination of those feelings will always reveal non-individualistic dependence.

The independent individualist does not need anyone else’s approval, agreement, acceptance, or understanding of anything they choose to think or do. If they did, they would not be independent. The kinds of feelings that tempt one to compromise their own principles and values are just those that do indicate such needs and dependence. For example, they might have:

A feeling that they will disappoint someone else’s expectations.

A feeling that they will be disapproved.

A feeling they will not be accepted.

A feeling that they will not be understood.

The most unforgivable of such feelings is a feeling that someone else’s feelings will be hurt. If one’s own feelings are not a correct reason for making any choice, how much less are someone else’s feelings a wrong basis for choices.

The proper relationship between feelings and choices is a large subject which will be continued in the next Daily Freedom.