Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 5:11 pm
Greatest I am wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 3:05 pm
We all have a free will, but not freedom.
You are always free to break the rules and live with the consequences. Vigilantes do just that.
Are you, or can you be free of society? As Socrates said, who would make your shoes. Meaning of course that we are tribal and all rely on each other.
If you think you have the freedom to live on your own, tell us how long you would last in the bush on your own.
Freedom, IMO, should be written as freedumb, just to show us how foolish of an idea it is.
Are you denying that you rely on others?
Not relevant. One can be free, and have relationships with others. In fact, if one has no relationships, one is not so much free as in a vacuum.
I think your problem is that you think that having rules means there isn't freedom. In point of fact, rules and freedom have a coordinated relationship.
Look at a football team. There are rules, boundaries, roles, specified goals, all kinds of things. But would it be anyone's position that there's no freedom in football? Of course there is. There's immense opportunity for personal creativity and achievement. And ironically, without rules, goals, etc. there would be neither creativity nor any achievement at all. There would be just a bunch of individuals, standing in an empty field, with nothing to do.
Life is the same. There are rules and givens...there is a "game" to be played, the game of creating a fulfilling and meaningful life. And the game just can't be played any old way...there are life patters worth having (say, the lives of great scientists, philanthropists, admired heroes, or even financiers, if you like), and also some life patterns that are not worth creating for oneself (prisoner, addict, psychopath, street urchin, lone-wolf, prostitute or chattel slave). The challenge is to exercise one's own freedom to make the best of one's life, within the social context itself.
So society and freedom are not enemies. One does not eliminate the other. In fact, human beings are meant to live in societies, and cannot be fulfilled in the absence of any other people. The freedom in life comes in negotiating one's way amid the complex "givens," (such as rules, the wishes of others, limitations of resources, and so on) while taking advantage of one's chances for creativity (opportunities, options, choices, alternatives, relationships, personal objectives and potential).
The free "player" plays the game with skill, ingenuity, cleverness and success. But this is only possible within the context of the social world and it's realities.