JJ Rousseau wrote in social contract that man is born free but everywhere he walks in chains.
Okot P’bitek on the other hand wrote man is not born free because even at birth he is physically attached to the mother. And man can’t be free. It is in these chains that he becomes human- societal chains( brother, sister, father, mother, uncle and all).
Questioning the conventional wisdom
Everything random... At 3am 😊
musings on the human condition
Telling Authentic Stories For Social Change!!!!!!
The African Environmental Blog site
The world inside my head is beautiful 🌷🌷
Videos of feral cats on the streets, and my own four feral felines at home, feline humor, advice, and gifts for your cat.
Sentiments
My journey to finding love through the sea Fuckboys
A blog by the Global Governance Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva
Nicole
Cogito Ergo Sum
Sustainable Living & Wildlife Conservation in Kenya Blog
Where The Eagles Fly . . . . Art Science Poetry Music & Ideas
One minute info blogs escaping the faith trap
sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...
Mark and Abbie Jury
Life is intuition woven on fickleness.
Life is a journey. Let us meet at the intersection and share a story.
Random musings about everything.
With(out) Predicates
I call architecture frozen music. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
An online journal celebrating the joys of living bare with pride! This site usually publishes every Monday and Friday. I may be irreverent but I am no way irrelevant! My preferred personal pronouns are he, him, his.
Confessions Of A (former) Young Earth Creationist
An archive for ... my stuff...
Canadian cogitations about politics, social issues, and science. Vituperation optional.
“Freedom” of the ultimate kind would mean not dependent on anything, including the basics, like oxygen.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s a freedom that is not even possible, nor desirable unless you want to be Buddha
LikeLiked by 1 person
My favorite loony toon movement is the BREATHARIANS, who claim they are so (woo-woo) evolved that they can subsist on sunline and sacred PRANA energy. Freedom from Food!
Of course, when caught with a cooler of junk food, they claim they just “enjoy an occasional snack for the taste”. LOL
LikeLike
haha.
freedom from food. those are loonies
LikeLike
I think JJ got it wrong, though as a pronouncement it has a fine ring to it. In fact it was one of my favourites in my formative years. There was a Russian quote I liked at the time too: ‘our prison is all the world.’ I don’t remember ever trying to resolve the obvious contradictions between the two positions.
LikeLike
the two are difficult to resolve
LikeLiked by 1 person
question with no definitive solution, but lots of opinions, depending on your definition of free. Free of what? Free from what?
LikeLike
you are right and most of the time the problem is that what people mean when they talk about freedom
LikeLike
The freest man is he who can carry all he owns, on his back….read this somewhere..
LikeLiked by 1 person
But such a man would not be free of discomfort from the elements,
LikeLiked by 2 people
True…
Maybe ultimate freedom is death, but you wouldn’t know it. I don’t prefer to be that free😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
this is where i would say give me freedom but spare me death 🙂
LikeLike
is he free of relationships?
LikeLike
One could be born freer than normal if parents allowed it. Beliefs tend to dismantle even the best attempts.
LikeLike
i doubt it. one still has filial obligations that wouldn’t allow much freedom. but whether we want to be free of such obligations is a different matter
LikeLiked by 1 person
Political theorists like Rousseau, Locke, and others are describing freedom in the context of government. People are born free from law; the social contract creates such obligations. Other restrictions on human freedom (logical necessity, dependancy, nature) are typically irrelevant to their discussions.
Rousseau is discussing artificial restrictions on human behavior, not natural ones. There’s nothing anything that can be done about the latter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But I think this distinction is not obviously a hard line. The political/social realm directly impinges on the “natural”. Is it OK to beat one’s child or wife :() Natural law is silent on this. It is social/political law that governs how a society handles these natural law issues.
Humans are social animals, even without a formal state. How can there be natural restrictions that are not social restrictions?
LikeLike
Natural law refers to things that are possible/impossible. There’s no ethical question. For example, a person can’t travel faster than light. That’s a natural law. There’s no social restriction on doing it.
Looking at it from the other side, there’s no natural law against homicide. Homicide is something we’ve made up informally in social taboos all the way to legal statutes. While killing people has an effect on nature, it cannot be said to be a natural law.
LikeLike
is it possible to be without a government or some form of political organization?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s possible, at least in theory. An anarchist could give you a more thorough answer. I personally think that government is to human social organization that apartments are to human habitation. You can live without an apartment, but life is often easier than if you lived in something more primitive.
But then again, some apartments get an infestation of cockroaches, and they become unlivable. So there’s that, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t believe there is such a thing as true freedom. We all have restrictions placed by society or even ourselves.
A man living alone in the wilderness would be as free as I could imagine, but even he is not free to wrestle the bear or go over the falls…
LikeLiked by 2 people
i think you are right. there are always restrictions to one’s freedom
LikeLike
The “freedom” is a very profound and also very confusing state of being. In believe, for whatever it is worth, that none of us are truly born free because our state of being depends on our family as well as our society and culture. Good question, my Kenyan brother! 🙂 Naked hugs!
LikeLike
why do we desire freedom? why is our language littered with it when it is not possible? i know some freedom is possible- like free from coercion and all
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think we all like the freedom of making our own decisions.
LikeLike
But…but…but…our “will” is “free”, right? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Except for the wills we are selling at $7.59
LikeLiked by 1 person