Born to Be Free: The Rebel Spirit of Surfing and the Case for the Individual

The surfer instinctive resistance to authority is rooted in a deeper truth about the primacy of the free individual

Published in partnership with Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat, on the rebel spirit of surfing and the deeper truth it reflects about the free individual.

There has always been something rebellious about surfing, a resistance to authority, a suspicion of rules, a fierce attachment to freedom that has marked the surf culture from its beginnings. This rebel spirit is sometimes dismissed as mere attitude, the posturing of a subculture, but it is rooted in something deeper, an instinctive grasp of a truth that the political philosophy of liberty has long articulated: the primacy of the free individual, and the suspicion of the authority that would constrain them.

The Instinctive Libertarian

The surfer is, in a sense, an instinctive libertarian, drawn to the freedom of the sea, suspicious of the rules that would govern it, fiercely protective of the autonomy that surfing offers. This instinct, felt before it is articulated, grasps something that the philosophy of liberty makes explicit, that the free individual is the fundamental unit of moral and political concern, that authority must justify itself before it constrains, that freedom is the default and constraint the exception requiring justification. Writers at Reason have long articulated exactly this instinct as a principled position.

The rebel spirit of surfing is not mere contrarianism but a recognition, however inarticulate, of the value of the free individual against the encroaching authority of the rule, the regulation, the permission slip. The surfer who resents the restrictions on the coast, who chafes at the rules that govern the shore, who treasures the freedom of the sea, is expressing, in the language of attitude, a principle that the philosophy of liberty expresses in the language of argument.

The Primacy Of The Individual

The deeper truth that the surfer rebel spirit reflects is the primacy of the individual, the recognition that the individual is not a mere component of the collective, to be managed and directed for collective ends, but a free and sovereign person, possessed of rights that precede the state and that the state exists to protect rather than to override. This primacy of the individual is the foundation of the philosophy of liberty, and it is the truth that the surfer instinctive love of freedom grasps.

The case for the individual is the case against the subordination of the person to the collective, against the treatment of the individual as a means to collective ends, against the authority that would manage and direct and constrain in the name of goods the individual did not choose. It is the case for the freedom of the person to live their own life, to make their own choices, to pursue their own ends, subject only to the equal freedom of others, the case that the surfer rebel spirit instinctively affirms.

The rebel spirit of surfing, properly understood, is the spirit of the free individual, the instinctive affirmation of the primacy of the person against the encroaching authority of the collective and its rules. It is a spirit worth understanding and worth defending, for it grasps, in the language of attitude and instinct, the truth that the philosophy of liberty articulates in argument, the primacy of the free individual and the suspicion of the authority that would constrain them. Born to be free, the surfer paddles out, and in that act affirms a principle worth more than any rule.

The association of surfing with rebellion has deep roots in the history of the culture, the early surfers who defied convention, the counterculture that embraced the sport, the persistent strain of resistance to authority that has marked the surf world across the generations. This rebellion has sometimes been merely stylistic, but at its core it reflects something genuine, a love of freedom and a suspicion of constraint that runs deeper than any pose.

The instinct that draws the surfer to freedom and away from authority is, before it is anything else, a feeling, the felt preference for the open sea over the regulated land, for the autonomy of surfing over the constraints of ordinary life, for the freedom of the wave over the rules of the shore. This feeling precedes any philosophy, but it points toward one, toward the principled affirmation of freedom that the philosophy of liberty articulates.

The translation of the instinct into principle is what distinguishes the thoughtful defense of liberty from mere attitude, the recognition that the felt love of freedom rests on a deeper truth about the primacy of the individual, the sovereignty of the person, the priority of freedom over constraint. The surfer who reflects on their own love of freedom may find in it the seed of a principled libertarianism, the instinct made explicit and defensible.

The primacy of the individual that this principle affirms is not a denial of community or cooperation, for the free individual cooperates, associates, and builds community through voluntary means, as the self-governing lineup itself demonstrates. The primacy of the individual is a denial only of the subordination of the person to the collective by force, of the treatment of the individual as a mere means to collective ends, of the authority that overrides individual freedom in the name of goods the individual did not choose.

Further reading: Reason.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/