I am a Libertinarian.
Not to be mistaken for a libertarian, although it often is by people don’t think it through.
People often think that because Libertarians want to maximize personal freedom and limit government they are essentially hedonists, conservatives that like to smoke pot, or some other empty-headed philosophy that essentially has to do with narcissistic displays.
Ah contraire , not so.
Lets go back a little bit to something HBDers might find exciting. Alcoholism. Or specifically, alcoholism rates.
Cultures that have been exposed to alcohol the longest, have the lowest alcoholism rates compared to cultures that have very recent exposure. Why is that?
Obviously alcoholism negatively impacts your survival and reproductive success over all, especially back in history when the difference between surviving and dying was getting up in the morning to farm, or being sober enough to defend yourself from raiders.
More recently, in the last four hundred years or so, Europe’s food supply became stable and obesity and Gout became much more common (although we seem to be having a return to obesity with the rise of corn syrup and other crap that our populace is consuming by the truck loads).
Now we have people who can eat and eat and not put on any weight (I know of several) and this is more beneficial in our current society than those that put on weight easily (and therefore could better survive famines and lean times).
In cultures that have only more recently had a stable food supply, obesity, diabetes, gout and other problems are more prevalent. (again my recent foray to the beach notwithstanding).
Libertarians believe people should have to the freedom to do what they believe is best, and suffer the consequences of their choices, or the rewards of good judgment.
There is no government protecting them from their poor choices, they have to turn naturally to family, the church or their community. Bad choices easily lead to shame in that situation.
I, on the other hand am a Libertinarian and the best way to encourage hedonism and narcissism, is to have a government that supports people and the bad choices they make.
Would the Prodigal son ever come home to his father, repentant and ashamed, if his father had kept sending him money?
No.
The party will continue. It is not freedom that leads to hedonism, but freedom from consequences.
Our current society, despite a thicket laws prohibiting millions of behaviors, is hedonistic, narcissistic and empty.
It suits the Libertine just fine
