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Date Posted: 00:41:48 03/27/04 Sat
Author: Joe Taylor
Author Host/IP: wc03.wlfdle.rnc.net.cable.rogers.com / 66.185.84.70
Subject: Alright...
In reply to: Robert 's message, "In your essey you merely deal with freedom as political concept. That's a basic aspect and should be made more clear....." on 12:23:25 03/24/04 Wed

Your rape-theory is a nice one, however it only partly fits - preferably in political context. Pertaining 'rape', I'd say in first instance something should be done about the 'rapist'. If a person is attractive and gets raped, the priority generally isn't about removing this person, it's about dealing with rapists and rapist candidates to disable them acting this way. After all, raping isn't the proper way to deal with stuff and shouldn't be tolerated.


See, you're making a logical fallacy here - namely, the extended analogy; that is, you're taking my analogy of the rape of freedom to the rape of a woman and trying to apply it to areas where it was never meant to be applied. The key difference in treatment between regular rape and the rape of freedom is that a woman is a sentient, rational being, whereas a word is not.


Your asking for the 'original' meaning doesn't make much sense. Even if there is one, it's of no major significance, as a first opinion about an issue generally isn't the best one. That is, it only makes sense if freedom is nothing but a concept. This may indicate a basic gap between us, because for me it's a reality, and there the more appropriate question is: 'What is freedom?'


The original meaning of course makes no sense right now because freedom has no meaning anyway, but it can be important in other areas - e.g. trying to understand why it was raped in the first place, and trying to understand what it meant before it was raped so pervasively.


In medieval times people generally accepted being unfree as traditional situation and additionally as installed by some supreme Lord-God they believed in. That's why church never had a problem with slavery. What people opposed were usually certain ways to be treated they weren't fond of. To be property of someone not necessary is experienced as a bad thing, since most people don't intend to damage their property, in contrary they rather care for it. Dogs are property, nevertheless most of them have a decent life and enjoy it. A slave of Bill Gates probably would be better off than one of the numerous homeless in the US. Actually most people fear freedom and the responsibility that's part of it, and they eagerly exchange it for security, law and order, or whatever.
Imagine a person granted by his owner everything he wants - the only thing he lacks is to be his own master, but as long as the stuff is granted, this generally doesn't matter much. That's quite a bit the situation of modern society, and more than quite a bit the situation of most believers. According to their understanding they are owned by their respective God and in varying degrees subdue to his commands. It's sort of oriental despotism, with a nice, caring despot of course - well, mostly nice - but nevertheless a despot. The same applys in varying degree to all who are subdue to someone or something, some addiction or whatever. When your current commander in chief switched from booze to God, he just replaced one master with another one, the basic situation remained the same as before - except that this way he got the votes of the major section of his fellow slaves. Actually it's a good joke that most inhabitants of 'the land of the free' basically are unfree and fiercely stick to it.


First, in medieval times freedom did not have the positive connotation it would acquire in the early Enlightenment. Second, even if the idea of self-ownership (which is very close to the concept of private-space and intellectual liberties) is not that popular once you explain to people its details, the word "freedom" is still a buzzword. Libertarianism, for instance, depends on the rape of freedom, because its main PR tactic is to say "conservatives support only economic freedom, liberals support only social freedom, and we suppot both"; social freedom can be defined as a beneficial concept, albeit with difficulties, but once you get to the details of what libertarians call "economic freedom," the idea loses its appeal.

Third, religion and self-ownership (or Lockian freedom - these are fairly similar, except that one is well-defined and has a positive connotation and the other is not and is purely a buzzword) have never been compatible. Locke, mind you, was a secular philosopher; while the whole First Treatise of Government could've been shortened from ~120 pages to ~2 if Locke had chosen to question the existence of god and/or the veracity of the bible, Locke was nonetheless very secular, at least for his time, and very rational. The Second Treatise established the concept of people who were free from god. The earliest usage of the word freedom that I know in a religious context was in black churches in the third quarter of the 19th century, although granted, both god and freedom have been part of the American psyche for just over 200 years (it must be emphasized that the people who popularized freedom in the USA, namely the founding fathers, were all secularists).


Freedom is a matter of personal development. Though affected by social conditions, and though social conditions more or less reflect the level of freedom obtained by the people living there, essentially it's beyond conditions. It depends on the personal decision and ability to deny any domination by whoever and whatever and to act solely based on ones own understanding (the issue of understanding is essential there). Social conditions have to be optimized to further this development. The reason freedom became a major issue in modern times, necessarily accompanied by lots of abuse - verbally and by action, is because the average level of individualization in western world reached a certain point. Reaching this level requires decision whether to stand the challenge of freedom and responsibility, or to surrender to some sort of authority. The worst failure happened in Germany.
It's different elsewhere, and this affects the conditions appropriate there. It's a bit like individual development, for example in the beginning authority plays a major and healthy role - and the cultures throughout this world aren't same-time, beside of various more sort of 'individual' differences, though globalization increasingly adjusts it. For example Aborigines represented a pretty early stage - and a lot of damage was done by just importing european stuff regardless of what the situation would have required. This will continue to cause major trouble.


This contradicts the fact that even those who were staunchly opposed to freedom as you define it, such as Hitler and Mao, touted their ideologies as promotions of freedom - doesn't it?


In my opinion the way the Communists handled the stuff in China basically was beneficial there, despite of all crap that accompanied it.


Which part of what the communists did are you talking about? They did lots of things in China.


The problem with freedom is mainly the lack of a proper concept. This can't be fixed by making up another term (term = concept + word), though this may help.


That's where liberty comes in: it is not a made up concept. No; it is an existent term, which, while having been subject to rape, still retains a clear meaning, due to the fact that most democratic constitutions define it in very similar ways. Had liberty not existed as a term or an idea, I'd have proposed to have no such concept whatsoever, but rather to use individual ideas - privacy, freedom of expression, equality of rights, etc. Or, alternatively, I'd try popularizing the word "Quarpie."


It was just meant to illustrate that 80% shit wouldn't justify anti-americanism, that is to oppose it generally. They would however justify to examine everything originating from there VERY carefully, because of the 80% chance of being shit.


Of course. I just think that circumstantial pro- and anti-Americanism are important concepts because they determine what is good and what is not good in some respects. For instance, let us look at the question, "Should the EU adopt a pro-American policy?" A pro-American policy in defense means signing mutual defense agreements; a pro-American trade policy means concentrating on the United States as the primary trade partner rather than, say, China; and so on. If so large a proportion of the USA's activities is unjustified, then the EU would be wise not to warm up to the USA by letting it deploy troops on its territory, or concentrate on trade with the United States more than with other trade blocs, etc.

A more extreme question would be, "Would it be good for the world if the United States were to break up?" Here, again, it is vital to know whether most American actions deserve to be opposed or supported, with each action weighted according to the extent of its effect on people and the number of peopel affected, of course.

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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> It's like I suspected, our point of view is a basically different one... -- Robert, 11:26:32 03/28/04 Sun (host093025.phil.uni-erlangen.de/131.188.93.25)

I've encountered such situations before and it's almost impossible to deal with it. When there's a basic gap this affects about everything, even consent widely is result of misunderstanding there. Compared with it it would be a piece of cake to reach consent with Shaun about the US issue - and I'm not too optimistic about such a thing.

For example when you say "freedom has no meaning anyway" this may make sense within your system, but it doesn't make any for me. It's derived from your idea of freedom being ripped of it's original meaning and such stuff only works within your special concept of word, term, concept and subject. The basic issue to deal with would be the concept of 'concept' because everything is derived from there, but I don't see the possibility of accessing it here. I just recommend you to check the operation system anytime soon, the more the stuff stockpiles, the more messy such an action becomes.

So the best way to deal with the stuff now is to tolerate each others view and not to bother about it any more. At least that's what I intend to do.

Likewise you're free to address whatever and whomever you like as anti-american, with one single exception - me, because I'm my domain.


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