The defining trait of all previous societies had been that they were social—a body of people more or less united by common goals and values. The individual was subordinated to the group or, as the other great midcentury Spock put it, “the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, or the one.” A social imperative doesn’t require socialism itself, whose practical instantiations anyway tend less toward collectivist paradise than military oligarchy. It does, however, require a broader view, in which individual liberties balance against general welfare. Unfortunately, sociopaths are
...more
