Collectivism as Mysticism: How Tribal Thinking Abandons Individual Reality

Only individuals think, only individuals really act. There is no group, tribe, et cetera. There's Michael and Jim and Scott and... It's just those individuals. That's the only reality. That's all there is. - James Valliant

When someone posts on social media that "the left killed Charlie Kirk" or "the right is destroying America," they're making a fundamental epistemological error. They're treating abstractions as if they were concrete entities capable of thought and action. This isn't just sloppy language - it's a form of mysticism that abandons rational discourse for tribal emotionalism.

The problem runs deeper than political polarization. At its root lies a collectivist mindset that Jim Valliant correctly identifies as mystical thinking, whether the collective being worshipped is "society with a capital S or God with a capital G."

When Abstractions Become Floating Concepts

Groups, tribes, and collectives are mental abstractions - useful for organizing our thinking about multiple individuals who share certain characteristics. But they have no independent existence. As James Valliant observes, "all those other things are abstractions. And they can instantly become floating abstractions when you start waving them around."

A floating abstraction is a concept divorced from the concrete reality it's supposed to represent. When someone says "they killed Charlie Kirk," the word "they" has become unmoored from any specific individuals who actually committed specific acts. It floats free of factual reality, becoming a vessel for emotional projection rather than rational analysis.

This matters because, as James notes, "There is no collective brain." When we attribute thoughts, intentions, or actions to groups rather than individuals, we're engaging in a form of mysticism - believing in entities that don't actually exist in the way we're describing them.

The Mystical Transfer: From Religion to Politics

The discussion revealed a particularly insightful pattern: how former religious believers often transfer their mystical thinking patterns to political movements. As James observed, many people "reject many elements of their former religion. They tend to become determinists... but they still retain this religious dogmatism."

The structure remains identical:

Religious Mysticism:

• Sacred texts that cannot be questioned

• Heretics who must be purged

• Collective salvation through faith

• Individual agency subordinated to divine will

Political Mysticism:

• Ideological orthodoxy that cannot be questioned

• Political heretics who must be canceled

• Collective salvation through the right policies

• Individual agency subordinated to group identity

The Facebook post discussed in the episode demonstrates this transfer perfectly. The author literally describes political opponents as "demons" and calls for "repentance," using explicitly religious language to describe political disagreement. His epistemology has shifted from "God told me" to "I can see evil," but the underlying structure - knowledge through revelation rather than reason - remains unchanged.

The Collectivist Mindset as Anti-Individual

Collectivism isn't just an economic or political theory - it's a way of thinking that systematically denies individual agency and responsibility. When someone says "whites are racist" or "men are sexist" or "the wealthy are greedy," they're making claims about millions of distinct individuals based solely on group membership.

This represents "guilt by association" thinking, but it extends beyond guilt to all forms of group attribution. Whether the judgment is positive or negative, attributing characteristics to people based on group membership rather than individual actions abandons rational evaluation.

The mystical element enters when these group generalizations become immune to contrary evidence. No amount of counter-examples can shake the believer's faith in the group characterization because the belief isn't based on evidence in the first place.

Why Individual Focus Matters

Insisting on individual rather than collective analysis isn't just philosophically correct - it's practically essential for several reasons:

• Accuracy requires specificity. When we ask "did they endorse and sanction this particular thing? Were they the ones who actually said or did this particular thing?" we're demanding the kind of precision that leads to truth rather than tribal mythology.

• Justice requires individual assessment. You cannot fairly judge someone based on the actions of others who happen to share some characteristic with them. This principle underlies the entire concept of individual rights.

• Persuasion requires understanding individuals. As the episode emphasized, you cannot effectively persuade "groups" - you persuade specific people by understanding their particular reasons for believing what they believe.

• Progress comes from individuals. Despite collectivist mythology, all human progress comes from individual minds thinking new thoughts and individual actors implementing new ideas. Groups don't invent, create, or discover - people do.

The Rational Minority vs. Social Ballast

This connects to James’s claim about historical change: "History is always made by a small minority. The people who truly influence and push history forward are those who are committed to reason."

This isn't elitist snobbery - it's a recognition that most social change originates with individuals who think independently rather than collectively. The "rational minority" consists of people who evaluate ideas based on evidence and logic rather than group loyalty or emotional appeal.

Those who abandon individual thinking for tribal mysticism become what we call "social ballast" - people who follow cultural currents rather than shaping them. They've "shut off their volitional capacity" by subordinating their individual judgment to group consensus.

This doesn't mean these people are inherently inferior - the capacity for independent thought exists in most people. But they've chosen to surrender that capacity to the comfort of collective identity.

The Emotional Compass Problem

Once reason is abandoned for tribal thinking, what guides decision-making? As James explained: "The only faculty that you know, the only compass you've got that's gonna guide you is your emotions because you've tossed out the compass of reason."

This explains the hysterical quality of much contemporary political discourse. Without rational standards for evaluating claims, people default to emotional intensity as a measure of truth. The more passionately someone believes something, the more true it must be.

The Facebook post about "demons among us" perfectly illustrates this dynamic. The author makes sweeping claims about entire political groups without offering a shred of evidence, relying instead on the intensity of his emotional conviction as validation.

Breaking Free from Mystical Collectivism

Escaping this mindset requires conscious commitment to several principles:

• Focus on individuals, not groups. When someone makes a claim about "the left" or "the right," ask for specific examples of specific people doing specific things.

• Demand evidence for generalizations. Group characterizations should be based on actual data about actual individuals, not stereotypes or emotional impressions.

• Resist tribal loyalty tests. Your obligation is to truth, not to defending every action of people who happen to share your political views.

• Maintain individual agency. You are responsible for your own thoughts and actions, not for the behavior of others in your supposed "group."

• Use reason as your guide. Emotional reactions can provide information, but they shouldn't substitute for rational analysis.

This isn't an abstract philosophical debate. The collectivist mindset is actively destroying the possibility of rational political discourse. When people view politics through tribal rather than individual lenses, compromise becomes betrayal, disagreement becomes heresy, and opponents become demons.

As James warned, "once you've abandoned reason, of course, you're going by the emotional seat of your pants. That's what you're reduced to." A political culture operating on pure emotion rather than reason cannot sustain the complex institutions that modern civilization requires.

The path forward requires recognizing that collectivism is mysticism - an abandonment of rational standards in favor of tribal faith. Only by insisting on individual rather than collective analysis can we restore the possibility of productive political discourse