Extreme collectivism and extreme individualism are paths to violence. Somewhere inbetween is better, but it can never satisfy extremists on the far-left and far-right who will scream injustice.

Anyone from any political ideology who smugly looks down upon other people and insults them for not following the "true way" as they see it is a person who has elements of authoritarian collectivism in their mind. I have nothing against individualism, but I really think people need to learn to "love thy neighbour" and "treat unto others as you would treat unto oneself" - those are valuable lessons from the New Testament. Sadly, too many people today are so self-centred and busy with work to even get to know their neighbours these days. What a sad reality. Learn to love other people in spite of their flaws and in spite of differences and you will become a truly good person. That's why I can be friends with conservatives, because I don't shout them down because I disagree, I respect them and thus they respect me, I learn mistakes in my world view from them, and then they do so from me. Nobody's perfect, so don't buy any argument from any politician from left, right, or center who smugly claims to know all the answers - because they are either liars or delusional.

Any ideology in the world can be perverted into evil. Orwell as a moderate and non-dogmatic socialist knew that. As a democratic socialist I fully acknowledge that many people have been murdered in the name of socialism - i.e. under the Soviet Bolshevik police state and purges of dissidents, the murder of Jews in the name of National Socialism, and the killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot who killed off about one-sixth of his population under socialism. Democratic socialists like Orwell had the courage to not blindly follow the political left in its entirety, and he challenged lefist fanatics. I challenge Marxist lunatics every time I here them. The political right has to be careful to not fall into dogmatism, or just as they fear that leftists will fall into communism, they will fall into being reactionaries. As a socialist my advice is this: BEWARE OF ANY SOCIALIST, CAPITALIST, NATIONALIST OR OTHER "IST" WHO PROMISES A UTOPIAN FUTURE! Utopia is scientifically impossible!!! The world is imperfect just as people are, and that world is beautiful. It's the dream world of utopian fanatics who want a perfect society, a perfect people, a perfect race, a perfect universe that is sick and disgusting - because it always leads to tyranny.