21–30 of 266 posts
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
What does this mean? As in your freedom to swing your fists ends at the tip of my nose? Or something else?
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
I was thinking, I can currently go from NA to Europe today if I wanted to. But that level of technology and orchestration would not be possible in a lawless and barbaric society (at least I don't think so). This possibility offers me a lot of freedom (traveling around the world) and in exchange, I had to follow rules and work. I gave some freedom and got more in exchange. The same thing applies for many other things…
As surveillance gets easier, we need to choose having crime for the sake of privacy. As the manufacture of dangerous materials and weapons gets easier, we need to choose between living in a more dangerous world, or slowing human progress.
Not every culture has the same risk tolerance. Not every time period has the same risks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed.
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
What are you talking about? Snowden is talking about the Freedom of the mind.
One person's freedom is another's tyranny and vice versa.
It's all a treacherous language game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
The mistake people make when acknowledging that a freedom/collectivism equilibrium exists is to assume that freedom/collectivism changes are also in some sort of balance.
The reality is that collectivism is like the dark side of the Force. It's powerful. Seductive. Once you go down the path of embracing collectivism, it's extraordinarily difficult to turn back. Sounds dramatic, I know. But collective state action is a slippery slope. It's really easy to say, "everyone should do X" and in a democratic society, all you need is a slim majority to make X a law. But X isn't always enacted properly. The unforeseen consequences of X are often really unpleasant. But rolling back X is always harder than putting it in place.
You have to remember that every time you hand over a problem X to people in government, X gives them more power. Power is almost never relinquished willingly by the powerful.
Regarding Edward's article and his connection to Ai's book, I think I could understand it from memory of reading culture revolution books. They are all about human nature and individual struggles, very little is about actually political stances. It often portraits intellectuals against village fools (mob riding the revolution waves to obtain power over everyone), their realisation of life and coming of age (since protagonists are often from privileged background and aristocrat families who have leftist values, or rather, called rightists in China). The value clash between total opposite sides, tribal, village, modern, metropolitan, aspiration, destination, mundane, soul crashing... It resonates with ordinary people because it's picturing societal and individual psychologies. This is my naive take.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed.
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on rhetoric.