Raw Liberty and Fierce Individualism

Via The Corner, some quotes from Joss Whedon about the politics behind Serenity/Firefly:

And people are always like, "They're fighting an evil empire!" And I'm like, "Well, it's not really an evil empire." The trick was always to create something that was complex enough that you could bring some debate to it — that it wasn't black-and-white. It wasn't, "If we hit this porthole in the Death Star, everything will be fine!" It was messier than that, and the messiest thing is that the government is basically benign.

and

...if the movie's about anything, it's about the right to be wrong. It's about the messiness of people. And if you try to eradicate that, you eradicate them.

Jonah Goldberg adds:

Serenity would be seen — exactly as Whedon intended it — as a denunciation of collectivism, root and branch. And, even though fascists were collectivists to the core, people who opposed collectivism were called "fascists" by the left — as they are today.

An argument which nails, inadvertently, why the virulent strains of textbook liberalism are tremendously annoying and intrusive. Instead of structuring society on the rights and responsibilities inherent to the individual - regardless of whether or not the individual amounts to anything - this philosophy contends that the social greater good can be determined, inflicted on people, and the outcome will be happiness (if only the corporations and religious people will get out of the way). They seek a government that not only provides overall domestic security and basic services, but one which ensures a comfortable material well-being for all citizens, even protection from hurt feelings - and federal "help" within hours of a massive hurricane.

True liberty doesn't come with a guarantee of civility. If applied equally to all men and women - which it should be - then there won't be a balanced outcome. But here's Oliver Wendell Holmes, often celebrated as one of the forefathers of the ACLU:

Some kind of despotism is at the bottom of seeking for a change. I don't care to boss my neighbors and to require them to want something different from what they do - even when, as frequently, I think their wishes more or less suicidal.

That's the right to be wrong coupled directly with a denunciation of collectivism. This quixotically "liberal" notion is foundationally present in an older, and some would say more conservative conception of American society.

Tags: Pragmatism, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joss Whedon, Firefly