Delusions of freedom? Indeed, many people firmly believe they are free, when the fact is they are not. We live in a world where the people of the street are mere pawns of higher up politics, mainly economic. The make-believe attitude of our leaders really works, as did Nazism in Germany do.
No, I don't think it does really work. Or if it did, it's time is nearly up. More and more people in the US and UK are becoming appalled and angry at what is being done in their name. And we have the internet, which the 1930s Germans didn't.
Many people have a short attention span, and most aren't interested in politics. It's up to those of us who are to do our best to educate our neighbours. The problem is, people feel helpless to influence the course of events - remember over a million marched against the Iraq war, and Blair took no notice.
I often wonder what I would have done if I had been a German in the 1920s and 1930s. Probably I would have behaved like the author of the book this extract is from, and would have kept my head down until I was carted off to a concentration camp.
Just because we believe we are more 'aware' than others, let's not be elitist or feel smugly superior.
THE 'Sufis' point out that 'freedom of choice' and an /unlimited/ number of choices are not equivalent. Indeed, as they pointed out long ago in the /I Ching/, peoples' characters can only develop substance & moral authority as the options /narrow/.
[THIS Is the sense in which mediaeval christianity worked out the dogma, of 'free will'. On this level, of course, it is primarily an interior & psychological experience (the decision to assent to, or to refuse, the image, /eg/); and, of a type no longer readily available to the individual because of the sheer volume of extraverted distractions.]
NATURALLY, Being myself a moral vagabond & especially extraverted & 'normal' on the topics of "pussy & beer & driving all over Hell," I prefer blissful indefiniteness & generalised all-in rut; and, cheap petrol:
anticant is the blogname of a lifelong free speech and civil rights campaigner. A lot of his life since WW2 has been taken up with battling against cruel and over-bossy laws, censorship, censoriousness, and Nanny Knows Best types. Now elderly and in poor health, anticant hopes his memories and thoughts will be of interest to those engaged in today's struggles for freedom, democracy, and a more hopeful tomorrow.
e-mail: anticant@hotmail.co.uk
5 comments:
Delusions of freedom? Indeed, many people firmly believe they are free, when the fact is they are not. We live in a world where the people of the street are mere pawns of higher up politics, mainly economic. The make-believe attitude of our leaders really works, as did Nazism in Germany do.
No, I don't think it does really work. Or if it did, it's time is nearly up. More and more people in the US and UK are becoming appalled and angry at what is being done in their name. And we have the internet, which the 1930s Germans didn't.
Glad to learn that, Anticant. I'm afraid, though, that mental idleness makes people forget in the not too distant future.
Many people have a short attention span, and most aren't interested in politics. It's up to those of us who are to do our best to educate our neighbours. The problem is, people feel helpless to influence the course of events - remember over a million marched against the Iraq war, and Blair took no notice.
I often wonder what I would have done if I had been a German in the 1920s and 1930s. Probably I would have behaved like the author of the book this extract is from, and would have kept my head down until I was carted off to a concentration camp.
Just because we believe we are more 'aware' than others, let's not be elitist or feel smugly superior.
THE 'Sufis' point out that 'freedom of choice' and an /unlimited/ number of choices are not equivalent. Indeed, as they pointed out long ago in the /I Ching/, peoples' characters can only develop substance & moral authority as the options /narrow/.
[THIS Is the sense in which mediaeval christianity worked out the dogma, of 'free will'. On this level, of course, it is primarily an interior & psychological experience (the decision to assent to, or to refuse, the image, /eg/); and, of a type no longer readily available to the individual because of the sheer volume of extraverted distractions.]
NATURALLY, Being myself a moral vagabond & especially extraverted & 'normal' on the topics of "pussy & beer & driving all over Hell," I prefer blissful indefiniteness & generalised all-in rut; and, cheap petrol:
THIS Is what the market-place conveys, precisely:
ON Offer, a plethora of /shit/.
AND The shopping-experience?
THE Feeling of freedom.
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