The emergent individual in the sixteenth century had sought new rights, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century the rights appropriate to his character had, in England and elsewhere, been largely established. The 'anti-individual' observed these rights, and he was persuaded that his circumstances (chiefly his poverty) had hitherto prevented him from sharing them. Hence the new rights called for on his behalf were, in the first place, understood as the means by which he might come to participate in the rights won and enjoyed by those he thought of as his better placed fellows. But this was a great illusion; first, because in fact he had these rights, and secondly because he had no use for them. For the disposition of the 'mass man' was not to become an individual, and the enterprise of his leaders was not to urge him in this direction. And what, in fact, prevented him enjoying the rights of individuality (which were as available to him as to anyone else) was not his 'circumstances' but his character—his 'anti-individuality'. The rights of individuality were necessarily such that the 'mass man' could have no use for them. And so, in the end, it turned out: what he came to demand were rights of an entirely different kind, and of a kind which entailed the abolition of the rights appropriate to individuality. He required the right to enjoy a substantive condition of human circumstance in which he would not be asked to make choices for himself. He had no use for the right to 'pursue happiness'—that could only be a burden to him: he needed the right to 'enjoy happiness'. And looking into his own character he identified this with Security—but again, not security against arbitrary interference in the exercise of his preferences, but Security against having to make choices for himself and against having to meet the vicissitudes of life from his own resources. In short, the right he claimed, the right appropriate to his character, was the right to live in a social protectorate which relieved him from the burden of 'self-determination'.
But this condition of human circumstances was seen to be impossible unless it were imposed upon all alike. So long as 'others' were permitted to make choices for themselves, not only would his anxiety at not being able to do so himself remain to convict him of his inadequacy and threaten his emotional security, but also the social protectorate which he recognized as his counterpart would itself be disrupted. The Security he needed entailed a genuine equality of circumstances imposed upon all. The condition he sought was one in which he would meet in others only a replica of himself: what he was, everybody must become.
(Michael Oakeshott, "The Masses in Representative Democracy," in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, new and expanded ed. [Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991], 363-83, at 377-8 [italics in original] [essay first published in 1961])
Note from KBJ: This is a brilliant account of the psychology of contemporary egalitarians. Note the role of envy, the feeling of inadequacy, and the (resulting) tendency toward totalitarianism. Apply what Oakeshott says to the likes of Barack Obama.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 