Pierre Lemieux of Econlib says that “[a]n individual right of revolution follows from the primacy of the individual over the collective”….
To which I say this:
Lemiuex’s statement is too general. An individual may not violate group norms with impunity. Which norms, you may ask? Let’s start with the obvious one: the prohibition of killing that isn’t in self-defense. There are many more in the same category, that is, norms which work to the advantage of all members of the group (except, obviously, the renegades who wish to violate them). In the case of unjustified killing (murder), the murderer has committed an act of rebellion against a group norm, an act for which he will be punished unless he can flee to a safe haven.
What if a norm is a religious one, like praying at certain times of the day in a group setting, where absence or obvious abstention will be noted? Repeated violations of the norm, despite warnings, would be a kind of rebellion. It might even be on a par with murder in the traditions of the group.
So, where does group primacy give way to individual primacy? With murder, with grievous bodily harm, with theft, with extra-marital sex, with non-observance of traditional rituals? Or, to put it another way, where is the dividing line between an anti-social act (murder, etc.) and a justifiable act of rebellion? Those are the hard questions.
Professor Lemieux, in a gracious reply to my comment on his post (a comment that is essentially the same as the three preceding paragraphs), notes that Hayek had answered my objection. According to Professor Lemieux, Hayek’s position was that the group norms “to be enforced by law are only those those on which the existence of the whole social order depends” (i.e., societally essential norms).
I agree, in principle (and have elsewhere made the same point), but that still leaves me with the view that societally essential norms aren’t necessarily the same across societies. And to the extent that there are different essential norms within the United States, which is far from being one society, there is good reason to consider seriously a national divorce. It would be a more constructive move than a rebellion. The idea of rebellion attracts too many foolish hot-heads and would be a good excuse for overt suppression of all who dare dissent from "wokeism", and leftism generally.