From Havana to Hong Kong, the oppressed individual knows the severity of his plight. His is the vital conflict: the individual versus the state. At this time, particularly in Tehran and also in Communist Korea, Caracas and Arab and Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, the one who longs to live is the one who wants to profit and be free from tyranny. Regardless of blood, young or old, female or male, straight or gay, this individual—perhaps you who’s reading this—is alive and in chains. If this is you, there’s a word for what you are, can be and must become: the individualist.
It’s a new and undiscovered word, once briefly, rarely revered and given relevance by Ayn Rand before being purged and relegated to the ash heap by ivory tower keepers in academic halls and power-lusters in bland government buildings where bureaucrats cluster and lord over the people. Both scheme with hostile intent they made and make your robed, military and tunic-covered masters possible.
In her pamphlet, Textbook of Americanism, Ayn Rand wrote that “[a]n individualist is a man who says: “I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone—nor sacrifice anyone to myself.”
This is Joshua Wong in Hong Kong in 2019. Elisabeth Brotons, who boarded a raft in 1999 to escape Communist Cuba with her son, Elian, tying him to an inner tube as she succumbed to the sea and drowned before her child was rescued by an American on Thanksgiving. The individualist is Tank Man, who stood in Tiananmen Square against Communist China, in 1989. The individualist is Solidarity leader Lech Walesa fighting Soviet Russia in Gdansk, Poland in 1981 and the brave young ones who climbed the Berlin Wall—to escape Communism—and the individualist is the character Kira Argounova in Ayn Rand’s We the Living, set in 1922. Each man at the Alamo is the individualist—as are America’s founding fathers and Col. John Parker, the 46 year-old patriot who, in 1775, reportedly told his militia men: “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
Today’s individualist protests Islamic dictatorship in Tehran—and Communist control in Havana—and he is everywhere from African cities to the American plains. Throughout the history of art, in David by Michelangelo and in Roark—or Prometheus or John Galt—by Ayn Rand and in Batman, Superman and Mahershala Ali’s musician depicted in Green Book, as well as the dancer, such as Nureyev and Baryshnikov, the individualist inspires man to be his best against injustice. The soul of the individualist neither submits nor appeases and surrenders; he’s intransigent.
He’s alive. Like the early Americans who fought to create the world’s first nation based on individual rights 250 years ago this Independence Day, he is under siege in every place where man is oppressed. Like the heroes and heroines in these battles, stories and untold truths, the individualist rises and persists and, ultimately, he will triumph and live free. Whether in rubble, ruins and despair—whether longing for the love he’s lost or for the life and love he knows he deserves—the individualist can and ought to be both vulnerable and strong, finding courage wherever he or she can. Examples in reality and art abound: in the unconquered heroism dramatized in We the Living, which turns 90 years old this spring, in the epic and everyday struggle of ordinary people in the West and, possibly, even probably, if you’ve read this while warding off distraction in a world going mad, you, the reader. The individualist lives, breathes, meditates—and, like Kira in the snowdrifts, does not stop moving toward freedom with the fire and desire to live a life which is utterly your own. The individualist may buckle, tear and cough blood and go on.
“To bear eternal burdens is not the destiny of man. No, no, no! No more pariahs, no more slaves, no more convicts, no more damned! I desire that each of the attributes of man should be a symbol of civilization and a patron of progress…Man was made not to drag chains, but to soar on wings.“
These are the words of Victor Hugo’s Gauvain in Ninety-Three. These are the words of a hero. Though his character appears in fiction, he is real—he exists—he is there in the shadows and faraway lands—he is unknown, unheard, unseen—and he is here amongst you now. May you move, go, rise and let yourself be. You are part of this earth, you are part of reality; you matter, you’re here and your life belongs to you and you alone.
Now you know you are not alone. Know that, as long as you hold yourself above all else, you’re in good company. This is your life—may you fight to live and live with joy—and that your life is yours means everything. Individualism won’t make life easy, though being free—free to go easy—can make your life sublime. Only the individualist knows why this gives one reason to be happy.
