Evolution of an Ideology

When a senior in high school life is much easier. Despite a heavy workload from Physics and Calculus, it seemed much more doable than the three agonizing previous years. In retrospect it was probably as result of years of cumulative teaching on time management from teachers and learning the fastest way to complete homework effectively. Days seemed to coast by. The freshman seemed like little children fresh out of pre-school already capable of geometry and critical analysis of Shakespeare. After a math test first thing in the morning that took up the entire first period, I knew I was headed for an easy rest of the school day, relatively speaking. It was Friday too, which meant that in my Science Fiction Literature course meant a break from the week’s discussions in favor of watching something engaging but simple to digest. Mr. Kline was one of only four male teachers I ever had. Having a male teacher almost always guarantees an easier class, Kline was no exception. He was in his mid-30s, a lifelong bachelor, and had a neck beard that sort of turned into the chest hair that puffed out of the V-necks he wore every day.

I was already approaching the remainder of the day with a lackadaisical attitude; over the course of the semester I had been using a mechanical pencil to drill into the edge of my wood pressboard desk, I could barely get the pencil in any more. After taking attendance Kline popped in a DVD he had borrowed from the local library and played the pilot of a television show as old as my parents called The Prisoner. The opening sequence of the show had Patrick McGoohan cruising through London in a Lotus Super Seven to resign unexpectedly from a post as a spy. Later he was gassed and woke up in a mysterious seaside town called The Village. Fellow citizens were no longer known by names, only by numbers. The fierce determination of the titular character despite the increasingly creative and potent ways that those running The Village devised to get “Number Six” to divulge “information” to them caused an ever-increasing backlash in anti-societal argumentation. After watching the pilot I was hooked.

Over the remainder of the school year I poured myself into the series, not realizing at the time that I was also studying the ideas behind them as well. The series was supposed to be only a seven episode miniseries but to get funding from the BBC it had to be expanded to 17 episodes for revenue purposes. By boiling down the show to McGoohan’s original intent, a cold reality sets in - that society detests the will of the individual, and a never-ending struggle between man and men must be met with a ferocity and respect for the self - unsurpassed by the collective will. That those opposed to the individual will stop at nothing to break down barriers, to combine the thoughts and dreams of every person into a superficial utopia. In every episode the main character matched the wit of the collective, run by “Number 2.” The question never answered by Six was “who is Number One?” I began to look into McGoohan’s influences. Many claimed that The Prisoner was a conclusion to the recently finished series called Danger Man, which featured McGoohan as a spy. In interviews and literature on the origins of the ideas, a recurring name popping up was Ayn Rand, a Russian writer from the mid-1900s. In one otherwise forgotten article McGoohan stated that Six’s entire personality was a combination of the main characters from “Anthem” and “Atlas Shrugged” by Rand. A logical step then was to investigate Rand’s ideology.

By that point I was in my first semester of community college starting on the long task of earning a college degree. Knowing that I was interested in politics, I chose to take Intro to American political science. My teacher, Mr. Blair, was a very bitter Vietnam veteran. He always wore a grizzled look on his face and an army fatigue jacket. His bitterness fueled my rising change in opinion the day he presented the class with a sheet of paper. The page had three columns of words on them; by taking one from column A, then B, then C any government term needed can be created, simultaneously illustrating the ridiculous nature of government and the nonsense terms used to describe overly complex systems. He used it as the launching point for an hour and a half long lecture about how nothing the government does works as well as what the private sector could do. His counterpoint to his own belief was that some argue that the average person is a complete slob, contain the brain function of a pile of goo, and therefore must rely on the government to “wipe their ass.” I doubt think most people in the room at the time recognized the second half of the tirade as sarcasm; after all if they are just stupid slobs they would probably appreciate having a bureaucrat take care of them from cradle to grave. Because I am originally from Canada I see many of the same thoughts spoken aloud by friends and family members who praise the benefits of the subsidized lifestyle, blind to the shackles it places on those who are above average; Harrison Bergeron be damned. To me however, the bitterness spread like a benevolent disease, encouraging me to seek out individualistic tendencies and shirk the reliance on others. I felt much colder inside, less willing to be dependent on anyone else, but stronger all the while.

The following spring a movie came out that piqued the anarchistic seedling in my mind entitled V For Vendetta. Based on a graphic novel I did not get around to reading until five years later, the movie felt like if Batman were a freedom fighter caught in an 1894 style fascist totalitarian government. The title character V was so blindly obsessed with individual freedom that it transcended even his love for himself. Under the banner of anti-establishment terrorist Guy Fawkes, V brought an entire government to its knees by opening the eyes of its populous. The callous nature of his confidence resonated deeply in me. It was during the spring of 2006 that I knew I needed to investigate alternative ideologies much more. This led to hours spent on Wikipedia.com learning more about Rand’s Objectivism, Murray Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism theories, and libertarian political principles. Whereas I do not think that I fit any political ideology completely, I also see the inherent libertarian hypocrisy in saying as such, so I typically tell people that I am politically a right-wing libertarian. I recognized the author of V for Vendetta, Alan Moore, from a list of Time’s top 100 English-language novels from 1923 on from an English course, where his other best-known work Watchmen was listed. The rationale for adding it was that the philosophical approach of the story mixed with cartoons had created an entirely new genre: the graphic novel. The superhero Rorschach embodies very similar ideals to V: individual freedom is the platform that all greatness stems from, that the man behind the mask is not nearly as important as the idea the mask represents, and that one must be willing to die to defend the self. Both characters had troubled pasts and easily pegged as chaotic good, but leave the reader with an unanswered question about whether they are crazy as a result, or have ascended in understanding of the world. It is unquestionable to me that they were neither completely crazy nor completely sane, but I have yet to learn of any genius who was not a little off.

I was still a young adult at the time, and knew that it was healthy to learn how to define the self through the lens of education. I had been raised in the church my entire life, never questioning the tenets of the protestant faith I had held dear for the first two decades of life. As I began to look at the world from my new Objectivist viewpoint, even my religious ideas had changed. This was when I knew that I had found a philosophical label for myself. I found myself debating everyone, even those I agreed with, if only to help them reinforce their assuredness. When it was political, such as was the case in 2008 with the Obama-McCain election, I became more comfortable with interjecting a third opinion into discussions between those in favor with Obama and those opposed to Obama’s ideological presumptions. When it was religious, I found myself questioning fundamental aspects of the faith, demanding truth while beginning with a love for the self. While frustrating to explain to fellow Christians why I am no longer opposed to homosexuality or plural relationships, it is likewise frustrating to explain to people that it is morally acceptable if people speed on the freeway, live without insurance, or commit stupid actions. My philosophy and religion tell me to begin by loving the self, then others; that as long as I do not do any harm to another life in the process, there is no limit to what I can do with my own. If everyone else believed the same there would be no concern for pollution, lack of food, water, and shelter, and crime would be virtually nonexistent. The only way to describe the feelings I have for myself as a result of my viewpoint is to call it the positive side of narcissism or a reasoned mind’s approach to Freud’s “ego” principle. Taking on the mantle of V and Rorschach, it has become a life goal to ensure that everyone else loves themselves as much as I do myself.

In retrospect we are all Number One.