I have blogged about Freedom before:http:// http://wp.me/s31Nc4-freedom
Do we only appreciate freedom when we feel it is attacked? Do we spend our days considering the freedoms we have and how to guard and protect them with vigilance? Is the opposite of protecting freedom as an ideal even if not a real actuality apathy?
Maybe we need to contemplate this individually…
Namasté
Jules
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I think we are perhaps so engaged in struggling through our everyday problems that we forget to look at the erosion of our freedoms, whether they are self inflicted or otherwise. It seems to me that is is the actions of the minorities albeit government or terrorists that are determining the freedoms of the majority…at least physically! Mentally; perhaps we can learn to free ourselves from the constraints of collective thinking…..but then that takes courage to swim against the flow?
So are you saying that we have abdicated our commitment to freedom, whatever that really means, by bowing to external diktat?
Probably. I think what I am saying is that we have become so used to the State and Workplace looking after us that we have become apathetic.
Our focus seems to be on material things. In other words momentary “self gratification”. We seem to be more than happy for a tax relief or a new telly or a Caribbean holiday than actually looking at what really matters in life.
We have been conditioned over the years to let others do the thinking for us!
We’re still in a fuedal system only much much bigger. As Breshnev once said about the UK, “Britains democracy is an iron fist with a velvet glove on”!
But what I do believe firmly is that we are not living as is intended. But then that is a whole different discussion.
I would agree with most of that! A natural cycle? Does it mean humanity is not evolved enough to not go through struggle /freedom does the ideal of freedom only exist in the paradoxical tension of threat/peace? Is apathy the consequence of too much designated peace?
Possibly a cyclus, whether natural or not I don’t know. But don’t we humans take the course of least resistance? Ergo, easier to go with the flow than against…vis Germany 1930’s.
What more freedoms does an average European/N.American really need? We wake up, go to work, get paid, watch telly, buy our stereos, go on holiday what more do we need? State takes care of our health, our old age. Telly keeps us entertained and indoctrinated. Work takes care of our ability to buy food….and so we fall into apathy.
Aaaarrrgggh! Some of us are programmed to question, strive to discover/create/innovate. Excess freedom of the state suffocation kind abhors me. It rankles enough to keep me rebellious! 😉
Jules, my maxim in life is and always has been “Nothing is cast in concrete”! Everything can be changed, it just needs a little will power and occasionally to go against the grain. Gets you into trouble from time to time but the benefits far outweigh the trouble.
Problem is getting Mr & Mrs Average to wake up from the cosy apathy.
A thought struck me. Are you intellectualising freedom too much? Could your version of freedom be differrent to mine or Mr & Mrs Average? Is your’s the right to stand on the barricades and demand change? Is Mr&Mrs Average the ability to switch the TV on for a couple of hours each evening and lose themselves in fantasy? Or mine to jump in my car and bugger off down to Spain?
Perhaps to understand Freedom we have to define what freedom is?
Absolutely! Hence the inclusion of my original thoughts on Freedom 🙂
Looked up Freedom in the Oxford dictionary:-
The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants:
So, my next thought is; “haven’t I got that right”?
But then my ego checks in and says something like “I don’t want this or that law”! Have I lost my freedom? Doesn’t society need laws (many of which we don’t personally like) in order for it function properly?
If we go around living exactly as we want to, do we create an anarchaic society that basically puts us back into the dark ages where only the strongest survive?
And then there is the personal side. Freedom from individuals who dominate us. Perhaps more difficult. Do we take our freedom there by walking away or fighting?
Is this what we are talking about really? Or are we talking about being egoists?
We are dissecting freedom in all guises, exploring what it means to our selves and the points of reference between us: it both increases our understanding and diminishes us as we use ego primarily to seek being understood by another: paradox
An interesting debate.
I think, at least for me “real Freedom” is in the mind.
We can enslave our minds to others, to laws, and to habits and lose our freedom.
Or we can look around us and see the beauty and freedom we have as individuals.
I choose to be free ergo I am free.
How far do we *allow* that freedom? To terrorise? How do we curb what we see as excess? Is our view of freedom what we should impose on others? 😉
I’m not sure how to answer that. Apart from say that I feel there is 2 types of freedom. The freedom in one’s own mind and the social freedom that comes with responsibility.
I believe we can give ourselves freedom within ourselves or enslave ourselves as I have mentioned to habits and others. This is a very personal freedom and doesn’t or shouldn’t encrouch on others.
Freedom of deed however has to be with some limitations. We can’t just go around shooting people or stealing etc otherwise all freedoms would soon evaporate and anarchy and mistrust would replace it.
So, in short, personal freedom is purely for oneself whilst public freedom has to have some form of guidelines (laws/rules) in order to enjoy that freedom.
I personally can’t really explain it more than that.
Jules, do follow all the #MagnaCarta800th stuff we are up to. I am studying the document before the 800th in June – so no we dont just think of freedoms when threatened but to preserve and protect them forever. Remember MC is the bedrock of over 100 national contitutions. None perfect some partially unwritten but always there for us to review, challenge and to build upon. 👍
I don’t know the stuff you are up to Roger so I will look into it: if you have any links I would be grateful! I wrote that blog as a philosophical query that I was meditating upon caused by the Paris murders. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I love to have my horizons broadened. You have generously added to mine. Namasté
You are a star! And your starting point is well put: Of course the argument will be over personal freedoms and govt intrusion as we tackle deliberate violence but that should not alter our goal of Liberty and Justice for all.
That why we need the best of us to be politicians and the rest of us to support them (challenge them) to get it right!
I’ll vote for you.
I put stuff out about MC on the Runnymede and Simple Solutions blogs and you can pick stuff up via my Twitter feed & #Runnymede or Magna Carta.
Enjoy. It’s a blast.
Thanks I will watch more carefully your Twitter feed: here’s to enjoying freedom!
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