Two of the Big Five Personality Types determine your politics; the problem with the Libertarian party is that they're made up by two distinct and opposite groups of people, neither of whom fit in with the mainstream.
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On the one hand, it is so bloody sensible and tempting, and you want to agree with it.
And yet at the same time, it is so ridiculous and destructive and annoying and frustrating.
And so you could, you could, maybe I should write a bloody book about the problems with libertarianism.
But in this video, I'd like to focus on one particular aspect of what's going on in our political discourse that makes libertarianism such an attractive option and yet such a dead end.
And it has to do with individual temperament and the sort of people who become libertarians.
Now the big five personality traits.
I'll link to them down below.
It's the best description, the most solidly backed up by experimental data, definition of what the dimensions of personality are.
There's five dimensions to personality.
But there's two in particular that I'm going to be looking at, because these two personality traits are very, very, very strongly correlated to your political views.
The other three barely correlated at all.
And those traits are conscientiousness and openness to new experience.
Now conscientiousness is how organized you are and how prone to being disgusted you are.
So if you are high in conscientiousness, you hate filth, you hate vermin, spiders, snakes, you clean frequently and you avoid disease, you keep your stuff all together.
If you're low in conscientiousness, you're going to be more disorganized, more chaotic, more kind of experimental with all of that.
Now openness to experience is a different trait entirely.
Soldiers, for example, tend to be very, very conscientious.
They have all their kit is sorted out.
But they're also very open to new experiences.
Whereas people that are closed to new experiences, they want a predictable, easy to understand environment.
So the classic Republican, the archetypal Republican is somebody that's very strict, even anal about everything.
Everything needs to be organized and clean and nothing unpredictable there, but also no new experiences.
So the archetypal Republican is that fuddy duddy living in suburbia that gets upset whenever the kids are listening to the new music and tries to pass bylaws all the time.
The archetypal Democrat, very low conscientiousness, that they're very disorganized, they don't have high hygiene standards, like they don't mind being in a dirty neighborhood.
And they absolutely love new experiences.
They're always looking, oh, let's try like sushi, let's try raw fish.
You know, that would freak out the Republican because raw fish sounds like you can get disease and it's like from one of those weird yellow people cultures.
You know, the liberal is not afraid of disease or less afraid of disease and loves the fact that it's from a foreign culture.
So those are the archetypal extremes, the fuddy duddy and the dirty hippie.
Now there's two variations, two variants that you get on these personality traits.
There's the person that is very high conscientiousness, but very open to new experience.
Like I said, this would be the soldier, very open to new experience, but very, very disciplined, likes everything being sorted out and kitted away.
The inverse of that is the person that is terrified of new experiences, doesn't know how to get along with the hippies.
The hippies are always doing all this new stuff and that scares the crap out of him.
But at the same time, very low in conscientiousness, very disorganized, very messy.
And so what happens is that these two completely opposite personalities both become libertarians.
Because if you seek out new experiences, if you are entrepreneurial, if you are artistic, you're not really going to fit in with Republican circles all that well.
And actually, if you look at the entire, the Manosphere and the alt-right, these are generally people that are very open to new experiences.
They like hanging out even with the hippies sometimes.
At least the hippies are doing something interesting once in a while.
Even if they're dirty, you just got to clean your hands afterwards.
New experiences, but still very disciplined.
Like we need some rules to keep people sorted out.
The other type of libertarian is terrified of new experiences, but very disorganized themselves.
And so this is what is colloquially called the autistic libertarian.
See, the sort of people, the heroic libertarians that are held up there as like, look at this great entrepreneur doing all these crazy, wonderful things.
That's the sort of libertarian that, you know, if they're working in Silicon Valley, they don't like wearing a suit.
You know, like they're a millionaire that doesn't wear a suit.
That was the thing, at least.
Now it's become standardized.
Whereas the autistic libertarian loves to go to these conventions that mimic Republican conventions, right?
But they don't have to be organized.
So what they tend to talk about libertarian-wise is how there's not going to be any rules to govern them whatsoever.
Because they're disorganized and they don't want to be told to be organized.
Like if they try and hang out with Republicans, Republicans will say, hey, get your shit together.
Whereas the upper form of libertarian, they hang out with Republicans and the Republicans say, stop listening to that new music.
Why are you dressing differently than us?
That's new and strange and it makes me afraid.
You know, this person goes and hangs out with the Democrats, with the hippies, and he's like, hey, I like what you hippies are doing.
I like all this cool stuff, but why can't you guys get your shit together?
You know, the lower form hangs out with the hippies and he gets upset because he doesn't know what's going on.
They're always doing new things.
And he's not comfortable doing new things, even though they accept him for being a disorganized mess.
And so when you get these two groups of people together, and they're both calling themselves libertarian, you know, the entrepreneurial libertarian says, you know, I want less restrictions on me being able to do my thing because I don't need society looking out for me.
You know, I want to go be an entrepreneur.
I want to go explore.
I want to go adventure.
The other one's saying, I don't want society forcing me to follow society's rules because I like being a hot mess.
You know, but I also want the security offered by society.
So I want to go to conventions that are just like the conventions I've seen on TV.
I want all of my everything being affirmed.
You know, I want this safe, predictable environment where I'm not held to any standards whatsoever.
And so this latter form, the degenerate libertarian, because they don't like new things, they are the ones that constantly reread, reread, and reread Rothbard or Mises or whomever, because it's comfortable for them, because it's in the past.
So it's comfortable for them.
Whereas the entrepreneurial libertarian, they'll read some Rothbard and some Mises, especially when they're younger, and say, hey, there's some really good ideas in here.
They'll read a bit of Ayn Rand and say, hey, yeah, these are some cool ideas.
Okay, I've read that.
I'm bored with it.
What can we do with this?
So the reason the Libertarian Party fails, it's twofold, and it comes from these opposite personalities.
The first of them is that on a fundamental level, these two personalities are in complete disagreement, even though they're ostensibly saying the same things.
The entrepreneur wants less legislation so that he can go out there and win.
He doesn't want to be blocked and prevented from doing things because the fuddy duddies say we've always done it that way.
The degenerate libertarian says, I don't want to be held to any standard.
On the surface, they're sort of saying the same thing.
We want less legislation, less bylaws.
But they're doing it for completely opposite purposes.
The entrepreneurial one, he already is kidded away.
He doesn't need rules to tell him to be kidded away.
The degenerate one just doesn't want to be kidded away.
And the second issue is that the entrepreneurial libertarian, he's always doing something new.
He doesn't want to go to a conference and talk about Rothbard for two freaking hours.
He's got no interest in that.
That's boring.
And so the people who dominate within the Libertarian Party are the ones that are most comfortable with a system, with a structure that doesn't change.
And so the funny thing about libertarianism is that you get really exceptional people, you know, that excel at something.
But they don't go to libertarian events.
They just tweet Ron Paul.
And then you get the bulk of the Libertarian Party that quickly devolves into gamma maleness.
And they become hostile, like both sides are going to be hostile to one another, but they're going to be the ones going to these conventions and holding a grudge.
Whereas the person that likes new experience but is very disciplined will move on from it and go do something amazing.
And so unfortunately, the center of gravity of the Libertarian Party winds up being the misfits that don't want nobody telling them not to look at porn, don't want nobody saying they can't use their drugs,
don't want nobody saying that, you know, you'd better, you know, clean your apartment and mow your lawn, but at the same time are terrified of doing anything new or actually winning because in failure, they remain content.
