Daniel Greenfield writes in his blog Sultan KnishThe Art of Building Things, 6/10/13.

Excerpts:

The seduction of the collective as builder however is not limited to countries that flew the red flag.  When Obama and Warren proclaimed that there were no monads, that no man was an island, but that we were all part of one great economic collective to which we owed an eternal debt, they were following up on some very old ideas.

Obama’s interpretation of individual creativity occurring only within the context of state institutions is a natural outgrowth of a political philosophy that views those institutions as the essence of the country and the true foundation of its national greatness. This “Institutionalism” is the dominant liberal mindset which sees individualism as a chaos that must be ordered by the state.

Institutionalism says that individuals are not creative, only institutions are creative. Individuals who create are harnessing the creative energy of institutions. In the liberal institutionalist view, the state must create the conditions that make creative acts possible and those who fail to acknowledge their debt to the state are “free riders” who exploit the system without paying back to it.

 

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