Comments on: theorize your freedom fries http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/ Theory, Terror, Dystopia Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:09:03 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: campagnolo http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/comment-page-1/#comment-224 campagnolo Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:09:03 +0000 http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/#comment-224 Its seems to me that freedom as desirable is a tacit assumption in our nation. I don't speak from any experience here, but I wonder if it is the same way in countries with radically different origins and traditions. Ask a person from any other nation what it is most important that government ensures, I think you might get answers from security, to religious piety, to economic equality. In my mind those answers would be coming from a dictatorship, a theocracy, and communist state. Of course its all individual but I feel democracies and America in general put an unmatched value on freedom and the role f government in assuring it. I found particularly interesting some of Sean's comments on liberty as having been replaced by freedom. It seems we idealize the sketchy concept of freedom here much like religious radicals treat their own stylized conception of religious law. It seems to me that essential to both is an undue weight placed upon a distorted goal. Its seems to me that freedom as desirable is a tacit assumption in our nation. I don’t speak from any experience here, but I wonder if it is the same way in countries with radically different origins and traditions. Ask a person from any other nation what it is most important that government ensures, I think you might get answers from security, to religious piety, to economic equality. In my mind those answers would be coming from a dictatorship, a theocracy, and communist state. Of course its all individual but I feel democracies and America in general put an unmatched value on freedom and the role f government in assuring it. I found particularly interesting some of Sean’s comments on liberty as having been replaced by freedom. It seems we idealize the sketchy concept of freedom here much like religious radicals treat their own stylized conception of religious law. It seems to me that essential to both is an undue weight placed upon a distorted goal.

]]> By: jaron http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/comment-page-1/#comment-211 jaron Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:32:50 +0000 http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/#comment-211 Perhaps it is not that freedom itself is a meaningless term, but that it is hard to make sense of descriptive claims such as a society is "more free" than another, that here is a need to have more freedom, that everyone should have equal freedom or strive for maximum freedom. Such claims seem to rely on the ability to gauge degress of freedom, sometimes compatatively, sometimes absolutely. This difficulty becomes more apparent when we consider the variants of freedom that was mentioned in class. There is "negative freedom" in the sense of the absense of obstacles or contraints, and "positive freedom" in the sense of self-realization. While they seem to stem from different sources (external vs internal), they bear a relation when we consider that positive freedom is often though of as necessarily achieved through a collectivity. Thomas Hobbes termed “the right of nature”, which is the rough equivalent of positive freedom, as “the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and consequently of doing anything which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto”. Hence, in the interest of self-preservation, man enters into a social contract whereby he submits himself and obeys the laws set down by a higher authority. Yet this seems to entail a diminished negative freedom. Thus, it seems like the inabiltiy of the individual to transcend his place within society inevitably leads to a paradoxical formulation of freedom, arising from the dual notions that we attribute to it. Perhaps it is not that freedom itself is a meaningless term, but that it is hard to make sense of descriptive claims such as a society is “more free” than another, that here is a need to have more freedom, that everyone should have equal freedom or strive for maximum freedom. Such claims seem to rely on the ability to gauge degress of freedom, sometimes compatatively, sometimes absolutely. This difficulty becomes more apparent when we consider the variants of freedom that was mentioned in class. There is “negative freedom” in the sense of the absense of obstacles or contraints, and “positive freedom” in the sense of self-realization. While they seem to stem from different sources (external vs internal), they bear a relation when we consider that positive freedom is often though of as necessarily achieved through a collectivity. Thomas Hobbes termed “the right of nature”, which is the rough equivalent of positive freedom, as “the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and consequently of doing anything which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto”. Hence, in the interest of self-preservation, man enters into a social contract whereby he submits himself and obeys the laws set down by a higher authority. Yet this seems to entail a diminished negative freedom. Thus, it seems like the inabiltiy of the individual to transcend his place within society inevitably leads to a paradoxical formulation of freedom, arising from the dual notions that we attribute to it.

]]> By: Max http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/comment-page-1/#comment-206 Max Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:05:57 +0000 http://projects.pomona.edu/english67f07/2007/12/12/theorize-your-freedom-fries/#comment-206 Interestingly, while writing most recent essay on Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash last night, I also noticed the loss of meaning in this word. Essentially, the governmental regulatory system has been replaced with a multitude of private corporations in the absurd and yet resonant society of Snow Crash, and people are "free" to do whatever they want in that one must only subscribe to the laws of the community with which one chooses to associate oneself. While this might seem completely "liberating" in some regards, in Stephenson's novel, it has had the complete opposite effect; people have far less control over their lives, and are manipulated to act in certain ways by their personal financial interest and the economic power of others instead of by laws. This got me thinking about how the only way to have "freedom," as we understand it in American society today, is with fairly strict government control over our actions, which in itself seems to be a contradiction. On the one hand, if we are compelled to act in a certain way by the government (not kill people, not run red lights, pay our taxes, etc.), are we really "free" to do what we want? On the other hand, if nobody is there set up those rules, the lives of others begin to encroach upon our own. If there isn't a power compelling people not to economically or physically pressure others into doing their bidding, can anybody really be "free?" All of these contradictions seem to lead back to the original post's point that "freedom" is arguably meaningless. However, with the inherent conflict in human nature wherein one has to forcibly compel people not to forcibly compel one another to do things against their will, it seems that "freedom" has always been without meaning in the context of societal existance. People will always try to control you, and in the void of a government forcing you to act a certain way, other elements of society will take the opportunity to fill the void because it is beneficial to them. Or maybe I'm just being to negative about human nature. Interestingly, while writing most recent essay on Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash last night, I also noticed the loss of meaning in this word. Essentially, the governmental regulatory system has been replaced with a multitude of private corporations in the absurd and yet resonant society of Snow Crash, and people are “free” to do whatever they want in that one must only subscribe to the laws of the community with which one chooses to associate oneself. While this might seem completely “liberating” in some regards, in Stephenson’s novel, it has had the complete opposite effect; people have far less control over their lives, and are manipulated to act in certain ways by their personal financial interest and the economic power of others instead of by laws.

This got me thinking about how the only way to have “freedom,” as we understand it in American society today, is with fairly strict government control over our actions, which in itself seems to be a contradiction. On the one hand, if we are compelled to act in a certain way by the government (not kill people, not run red lights, pay our taxes, etc.), are we really “free” to do what we want? On the other hand, if nobody is there set up those rules, the lives of others begin to encroach upon our own. If there isn’t a power compelling people not to economically or physically pressure others into doing their bidding, can anybody really be “free?”

All of these contradictions seem to lead back to the original post’s point that “freedom” is arguably meaningless. However, with the inherent conflict in human nature wherein one has to forcibly compel people not to forcibly compel one another to do things against their will, it seems that “freedom” has always been without meaning in the context of societal existance. People will always try to control you, and in the void of a government forcing you to act a certain way, other elements of society will take the opportunity to fill the void because it is beneficial to them. Or maybe I’m just being to negative about human nature.

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