morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) (01/10/86)
Praise be! can.politics is back! To keep it alive and well in the New Year, perhaps a few words on the recent discussion of court challenges to a union's right to spend dues on "social causes": It seems to me that these challenges are symptomatic of the great surge of the "I'm all right Jack" generation (previously the me generation, but now into material rather than spiritual self-actualization). Their archtype is the RUGGED INDIVIDUAL (RI). No matter that the RI inherits a society complete with: 1. high standard of living 2. public education, health, transportation, ... systems providing RI with the training and environment in which to *be* a RI 3. private industry run by RIs and employing large numbers of not-so-talented, motivated or rugged WORKERS, the RI is self-made: His money is his own, and keep your hands off it thank you very much. RIs are never unemployed (if they were, then they couldn't have been very rugged in the first place). RIs favour the SIMPLE SOLUTION: If only we could get government, the unions, environmentalists, ... off the backs of all the RIs out there, oh how wonderful the world would be. RIs don't want to belong to unions: Unions are for SOCIALIST WIMPS. They seldom complain about earning "union wages" (I wonder where that term came from??), but they do object to being forced to belong to the union or to pay dues. It's easy to be a RI when things are going your way. In bad times, though, it's not always easy to *become* a RI. That's why they're called RUGGED - it's a long climb up the rocky road to success: "You know, in the good old days, the poor had *character*. Sure they had to work long hours for low wages and in poor conditions. Sure they could be let go at a moment's notice. But by God, they were FREE." FREE is a very important word in the RI's vocabulary. After VCR, BMW and RRSP it is the most important concept in any RI's ideological grab bag. For example, "There are too many people in this country going for a FREE ride." "There is no FREE lunch." It is very important to RIs that they not be required to pay for anything that they don't want or can't see any immediate (read blatantly obvious) use for. Because they are such individualists, however, they often have difficulty *agreeing* on what they want. Seems everyone has his own idea about what to spend money on. This would be okay, except that even the most RUGGED INDIVIDUAL likes the things that only their amassed wealth can buy. Pooling capital for the common good is a concept that many RIs seem to have a lot of trouble with. Its sort of like paying full price for a buffet dinner when you're a vegetarian. RIs of course, are almost never vegetarians, but I'm sure you get the point. For this reason, most RIs are not Libertarians as one would expect, but vote Progressive Conservatives or Social Credit (Otto Jelinek is the quintessential RI. So is Margaret Thatcher except that she is a woman and most RIs believe women are too feminine to be truly rugged. Others reconcile this apparent anomaly by subscribing to the theory that Margaret Thatcher is really a man.) So we see that despite their RUGGED INDIVIDUALism, RIs are not above banding together to ensure that they come out on the positive side of any redistribution of social wealth. Now, if pooling capital is a tough bullet to bite for the RI, the notion of redistribution of wealth is a veritable MX missile. Most RIs believe that the money they earn is THEIRS. Hard to imagine how anyone who takes such advantage of the benefits of social organization could, but its true. In fact, they get positively hostile if they don't get it ALL. You might think that people who feel they are being so badly shafted would "take their marbles and go home" -- perhaps squat on some subsistence farm in Northern B.C., avoiding all contact with a society that throws rules in their way. Or maybe you think that those people who collect bottles from the trash cans in your neighbourhood are RIs who threw in the towel. You would be wrong. RIs view life as a game. Change the rules if you can, but the object is always to maximize personal wealth. You've seen the bumper sticker expressing the RI credo: "The one with the most toys when he dies wins." Part of being a RI *is* winning this game and wealth can only be measured relative to someone elses'. It is because of this that a lot of RIs who have only *modest* wealth wish to see that some people have *very little* indeed. This makes them feel that they are doing all right in the game. Nationally, RIs live for today, while being "great believers in the future." Personally, they save for a rainy day and conserve. Paradoxical you say? Paradox is the very nature of the RUGGED INDIVIDUAL.