Hey Focs:
Just a few thoughts...
Just saw 3rdwaveDave's post. Sorry, but I don't see the connection between
time and the topic of freedom and order. Not sure what you're getting at and
I'm a little confused as to why you're quizzing me on the transition from
cyclical to linear time. Please explain. ( Is it ok if we just call you 3D?
)
************************
Ancient Greek Democracy was different than our own. Their idea of a free
person was a citizen who could vote on the laws that governed him. But those
laws could regulate any area of life, there was no sense of "privacy" as
think of it and in that sense their "democracy" was a totalitarian
government.
It wasn't until we get to JS Mill that the classic liberal idea of freedom
was really articulated. Here we get the idea that there are certain domains
of life that should be beyond regulation altogether. What you say, what you
think, or how you decorate your bedroom is just not considered to be within
any police jurisdiction. Privacy is a relatively new thing.
The major European Enlightenment political philosophers all seemed to work
on the same impossible, hypothetical, man-in-the-state-of-nature premise.
Hobbes was very crabby. He saw natural man as a war of all against all and
imagined life in nature would be "brutish, nasty and short". Naturally,
Hobbes' ideas about ordering society were the most authoritarian. I think it
was Locke who concieved of a social compact where natural rights are traded
for civil rights and security. And leave it to the French to be most
generous about man's natural state. "Man is born free, yet everywhere he is
in chains". Natural Rights? Man in the state of nature? Where do you suppose
they got such notions? The noble savage and the new world.
The revolution of 1776 was different that the one in 1789. America only had
to cut some strings and then drift its own way, but France really had to
turn things around. They were very fond of the noble savage and they had
lots of great thinkers, but they also had to undo an Ancient system and a
powerful Monarchy. It wasn't entirely successful because a culture's history
can't be erased overnight, even if new values can be absorbed.
The conflict between Europe's old ORDER and the freedom inspired by the new
world gave us those strage oxymoronic creatures; the "enlightened despot".
Napolean's authoritarian and militaristic attempts to spread freedom and
equality througout Europe speak to this same strange mix. Emperor of the
revolution?! Ha!
It interesting to note that Napolean's extent of conquest roughly marks the
divide between eastern and western Europe. He spread the ideals of freedom
and democracy as far as the Iron Curtain, and that's not just a
co-incidence.
The revolution of 1789 started an age of revolutions, which ended in 1917
when the Russians revolted against an extremely "ordered" society. Plus they
were too far from the noble savage, so to speak. Their "revolution" gave
them real freedom for about 20 minutes.
I'm no Marxist, but freedom does seem to depend on economic justice. I mean
exploitation requires the denial of the time, energy and skill of the
worker. Just compensation for a person's labor should be the ultimate
property right, so to speak. I mean, economic freedom is a legitimate issue
in spite of Stalin's crimes.
When I think of European order, I think of an English garden or the palace
at Versallies. Grand Cathedrals, Empire and science. Its not all witch
burnings and gas chambers. And if you go back far enough, you'll find
Europeans who lived in teepees. No kidding. Clocks are European, especially
watches.
The United States is an Empire. Empire is NOT consistent with freedom,
equality or democracy. Sadly, genocidal wars against the Indians and the
enslavement of millions came after the Declaration of Independence. Please
don't take my love of freedom as some kind of flag waving patriotism. I'm
deeply disappointed at the distance between the ideals of freedom and things
as they really are in this nation.
Europe's all filled up with history. There's less space in Europe than there
is in the Hudson River valley of New York.
Thanks, DMB
------- End of forwarded message -------
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