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 Freedom 
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First bread...

Then warmth...

Then there is time to discuss freedom(s).

Or...

:?:


Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:28 pm
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that they would either starve or freeze to death (or get run over by a car) before they got very far


Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:10 pm
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According to Benjaman Franklin a person who will give up freedom for security deserves neither.

Graham

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Graham Ponder


Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:50 pm
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Hey Dan.
First I'd like to appologize for accidentally logging in as "guest" on Monday. I made exactly the mistakes Dr. Turner warned us against Monday night. I understand that physical needs like food and shelter and safety are important, but Im mindful of how often individuals have gone without some or all of these for the mere possibility of freedom. When I read your post, the overmountain men immeadietly sprang to mind. Their dogged pursuit of Ferguson and their defiance and defeat of him at King's Mountain were not rational responses, but we as Americans are all
fortunate heirs of that irrationality. Other irrational freedom lovers from our heritage also spring to mind; Ben Franklin, Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and just about every immigrant from the last two hundred twenty years including those folks from Cuba who keep riding rafts to Florida. These actions don't give security priority. Either freedom trumps security, or there are an awful lot of loonies out there.

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Jerry Long


Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:57 pm
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Jerry,

There are an awful lot of loonies out there

I guess what the real question is:

first, is freedom (the desire for freedom) - however and to what degree it is defined - a part of human "nature" or "nurture"?

and/or

secondly, isn't freedom "relative" (dear old Ben wanted freedom for people like himself, but not necessarily - as much or to the same degree - for people like you and me (and certainly not for women)

To me, it all goes back to money (money = power = money: if you ever get a chance, check out Erik Wright's neo-marxist formulations)

And to the step beyond ourselves - to your starving child, what matters most: that his father (or mother) is "free"?, or that he has a crust of bread in the morning?

Dan


Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:04 pm
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Dan,

Even if freedom is usually taught, somewhere there would have to be the original kernal of an idea about freedom that wasn't taught. I suspect that this smidgen of rebel resides in all of us.

I think perhaps your comment about poor Ben proves my point. I'll concede that Ben, and many of the founding fathers, didn't have many of us in mind when they advocated freedom for "all". This hasn't stopped us from taking their views about the inalienable freedoms of white male property owners and cheerfully applying them to ourselves, poor, minority, female, immigrant, slave though we may be. To paraphrase a famous freedom writer: There is no one born who believes that a life lacking freedom is a good life for them personally.

Frederick Douglas did not know his father. Speculating on who it may have been, he was forced to concede that his biological father could well have been the man that kept him enslaved. As a slave he lived a life of deprivation. Nevertheless, he traded his meager lunch to freeborn boys for reading lessons. A fatherless slave went without the little food provided him for the sake of intellectual freedom.

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Jerry Long


Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:40 pm
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Jerry,

Sounds awfully close to a Lamarkian hypothesis

Dan


Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:44 pm
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Dan:

You mention that you think Jerry is putting forward a Lamarkian hypothesis. In what sense? Could you say more about your take on this?

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Gayle Turner


Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:39 am
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Coming from the statement :

"Even if freedom is usually taught, somewhere there would have to be the original kernal of an idea about freedom that wasn't taught. I suspect that this smidgen of rebel resides in all of us."

Lamark (or Lamarck), an early evolutionist (proto-evolutionist?) is best remembered for his hypothesis on the inheritance of acquired traits.

He postulated that, for organisms: changes in the environment cause changes in needs which, in turn, cause changes in behavior which, in turn, cause changes in how an organism uses particular physical sturctures, and, in turn, that these changes were inheritable - kind of a parallel Darwinism

(By extension:) that humans are instinctual beings as are other animals

and

(by further extesnion, through Jung's theory of the "collective unconsious":) that humans share a "racial" memory (wherein "racial" stands for the human race)

Perhaps Jungian would have served better than Lamarkian as a reference point (but they both point to the same collective)

Anyway, the point being that: modern evolutionary theory discounts (is, actually, in opposition to the premise of) human instinct, and, therefore "this smidgen of rebel [that] resides in all of us" (read: desire for freedom) must be a part of the hypothesis derived (from Lamark through Jung) of a shared, collective, consciousness (for lack of a better term: an inherent spirit of freedom)


Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:02 pm
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For the first time in my life I have been associated with Lamark and Jung. Wow.

Dan,
If you insist on refering to people as animals then perhaps you will concede that we are animals not wholly defined by instinct. We certainly sometimes act according to it, but we do not have to. We are in fact able to choose not to. If we are animals we are very weird ones.

Lets kick this up a notch. We value freedom because our creator does and we are made in his image.

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Jerry Long


Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:26 pm
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Can "freedom" and "instinct" coexist in the same sentence, metaphorically speaking? Better yet, what is "instinct" if we take it in the sense of a collective unconscious, or if we take it as change in human behavior over time wrought by decision-making in response to external structures? Doesn't this definition of "instinct" disolve into freedom?

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Gayle Turner


Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:45 pm
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I'll admit I'm still not read up on Jung, but here goes something. Doesn't it all turn on "decision-making?" Isn't the question whether or not we have ever decided anything or have merely reacted? Is it perhaps whether or not our decisions are so influenced by externals that they are in fact predetermined and predictable and in effect not decisions at all?

I don't believe it and my belief turns on faith. An all powerful creator created what we see and all of the many things that we don't. Rather than be satisfied with his pivotal creation as an intricate automaton, he gave it (us) the ability to step out of itself, pause for thought, and ask "What is it all about?" There is a greater glory to him through the few that still follow than there would ever be from universally mandated obedience. God is into glory and rightly so.

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Jerry Long


Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:22 am
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Jerry,

Cannot recall a single time I have referred to people as "animals": any inference is your own

Both Jung and Lamark (Lamarck) would make fine associates

There is no action without an opposite and equal reaction: so, every decision (save the first) is, in essence, a reaction

As for instinct: people certainly exhibt some inborn proclivities: to speech, to standing erect, etc. - were the line is drawn between the two, I will leave to better minds than my own

As for the rest - freedom is a yearning - certainly a nurtured one - the extent of which is most often governed by the nuturing available

Dan


Sat Jul 31, 2004 6:28 pm
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