Originally posted by TeinosukeFreedom is whatever progressives tell us it is, just like everything else.
"Thank God I am not free, any more than a rooted tree is free."
Does anyone think that Lawrence had a point?
What values might be more important than freedom? To what extent should we be grateful to be "rooted"?
Originally posted by rwingett"'Freedom' and 'liberty' are not absolute terms."
'Freedom' and 'liberty' are not absolute terms. Lawrence, in my opinion, is not reacting against 'freedom' itself, but against a certain conception of freedom. A Libertarian conception of freedom, which, by atomizing mankind, has the effect of increasing freedom only in theory, while reducing it in practice.
Of course not, but you seem to be adopting an absolute view of liberty, alleged to belong to some libertarians. Most libertarians concede the need for limited government, some minimal authority to create security.
Bad things happen when either totally overshadows the other. Most of man's history security via authority has dominated.
Originally posted by rwingettFinally someone who seems to understand what Lawrence actually has to say!
When Lawrence thanks god that he is not free, he is saying that the Libertarian ideal of the wholly autonomous 'homo economicus' is a fiction. People are social creatures, born into pre-existing societies, with mores and rules which they had no part in shaping, which both condition their development and place boundaries on their scope for possible action. T ...[text shortened]... als." For Lawrence, such a "freedom" is not worth the terrible cost it would exact upon mankind.
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Originally posted by normbenignOf course the opposite is also true, but I just don't think you're engaging with what the original quotation is saying. I think Lawrence would have not have seen the polarity between "individual freedom" and "security" that you are predictably determined to sketch. If anything, he would have thought that the tyrannical state was the logical corollary of the liberal society. The rooted tree doesn't need to be forced to stay on its patch of ground; whereas you'd need to make stringent efforts to catch a wandering bird. I think Lawrence would have agreed with this modern formulation by Michael Walzer (in "Radical Principles" )
That always comes down to a political reality. Accepting some kind of government for common defense, which may or may not be adequate. Depending on authority for protection against criminal acts, which sometimes are just and sometimes not. Humans are not trees, any more than other animals are. Security for most species is desirable, but illusory, as is freedom. Freedom is most to be desired, and first to suffer in a crisis of security.
"Liberalism sets liberals loose from religious and ethnic communities, from guilds, parishes, neighbourhoods. It abolishes all sorts of controls and agencies of control: ecclesiastical courts, cultural censorship, sumptuary laws, restraints of mobility, group pressure, family bonds. It creates free men and women, tied together only by their contracts - and ruled, when contracts fail, by a distant and powerful state. What made liberalism endurable for all these years was the fact that the individualism it generated was always imperfect, tempered by older restraints and loyalties, by stable patterns of local, ethnic, religious or class relationships. An untempered liberalism would be unendurable."
Originally posted by TeinosukeSuch a conception of 'freedom' seeks to take the myriad web of social obligations and responsibilities and reduce them to simple, one-time cash transactions. In societies which have managed to retain some of the workings of a gift economy, interactions between individuals build up an interwoven network of social obligations which is continuously being tabulated and updated. These are the ties that bind a society together and make for rich social interaction.
Finally someone who seems to understand what Lawrence actually has to say!
In the Libertarian conception of society, with the atomized homo economicus as its ideal, the goal is to reduce all such social interactions to one-time cash transactions, which, upon payment, absolves the payer of any further social obligation to the recipient. All social bonds are suspended and he need take no further interest in the subsequent doings of his neighbor once he has paid for services rendered.
The ideal homo economicus therefore gains 'freedom' in the sense that he is liberated from the web of social obligation, but his this freedom is tempered by the diminishing input of social support that the observance of such obligations previously made available to him. He is now required to pay for such services within the confines of a market economy. And for most people, the inability to pay means that their practical freedom has been reduced while their theoretical freedom has increased.
Am I free? No. Was I free as a baby? No. Why should I be free now? Governments are made up of people like me. I like to compare myself to a leave blowing about in the wind.
People who want to punish you must believe in freedom otherwise they could never do it. It is irrational to punish a tiger for catching her pray just as it is irrational to punish a person for lying.
Originally posted by TeinosukeBertrand Russell came to think of Lawrence as a hysterical proto-fascist, and I am inclined to agree with him.
"Thank God I am not free, any more than a rooted tree is free."
Does anyone think that Lawrence had a point?
What values might be more important than freedom? To what extent should we be grateful to be "rooted"?
Originally posted by Bosse de NageSo am I. But I was asking about the specific comment, rather than his general attitudes. And while I see that people of the far right might be in agreement with the formulation I quoted, communitarianism is not necessarily fascist.
Bertrand Russell came to think of Lawrence as a hysterical proto-fascist, and I am inclined to agree with him.
Originally posted by TeinosukeSure. Well, Lawrence is simply incoherent, as the tree comparison shows. Surely the lack of freedom intrinsic to bipedal mobility is different in kind to the lack of freedom intrinsic to a rooted tree - or, for that matter, a tumbleweed (surely Lawrence's ultimate vegetable totem).
So am I. But I was asking about the specific comment, rather than his general attitudes. And while I see that people of the far right might be in agreement with the formulation I quoted, communitarianism is not necessarily fascist.