"... On Jun 24, 7:02 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: ..."
> Ants even take 'slaves'- much behaviour is deeply genetic. All > primates show political behaviour. Many competitions in the animal > world are brutish, some ritualised and there is more cooperation than > seems likely at first glance. Seems like an accurate assessment from what I've seen as well. But the primate aggression noted in the article seems most significant to me in the sense that they are our nearest relatives and we haven't changed that much except that today our aggression is expressed in more acceptable forms such as competition in business, sports, family and even with ourselves -- notwithstanding the fact that much of that competition incurs fraud, larceny and chicanery. Perhaps this is part of the path to achieving freedom from the fear and guilt which drives such destructive behavior. > I associate a burning lack of freedom > in our current society, much to do with dire jobsworths - this reminds > me a lot of the worst of the soviets. The ease with which anyone can > be treated as 'worthless shit' is what's eating me. I don't see this > as political-economic in terms of capitalism or anything else - it's > more imperialist. I have to ask ... freedom from what? Freedom to do what? A perceived lack of freedom is a recognizable and common plaint around the world today and whenever I hear it I ask those questions because from my perspective we have more freedom today than we've ever had in all our past history. But even here I have to define and divine the freedoms of which I speak. In an ultimate sense we all have the freedom at any time to perform most acts we can conceive but we don't necessarily want many of those freedoms. I'm quite sure, except for a few self indulgent miscreants, no one would want the freedom to pick up the jawbone of an ass and slay people. Freedom from want is relatively easy to achieve in western society and becoming more so in other societies via a great expansion of wealth (ex. China, India, et al). Freedom from being screwed by those wielding the big screwdrivers? Freedom from being treated as the 'worthless shit' you reference? I'm not certain but it seems that success in the political-economic realm would be advantageous to achieving freedom in those areas. Wealth and power enable a great deal of freedom. But I've a feeling you're talking more about freedom for the proletariat. I think this is probably achieved at a much slower pace and in smaller increments. The average slob in western society today has achieved a great deal of freedom relative to the amount of freedom he'd have in western society a hundred years ago. Sure, back then he'd have the freedom to wear a gun and probably get killed in some godforsaken bar fight Well, thinking about it, pursuant to new law, that same freedom is available here in Arizona. It is now legal for Arizonans to wear concealed weapons without benefit of a permit and to wear those concealed weapons into bars if they so choose. Maybe the heat eventually fries brains. But a century ago that same man or woman would not have the freedom to move about the world easily, study anyone and anything they chose, attend institutes of higher learning, be attended to by competent and well equipped doctors, lawyers, accountants, police, firemen, etc., to shop for a wide variety of merchandise from around the world, to do a million such things and benefit from a million others that simply were not available a hundred years ago. If I could wish but one freedom upon the human race it would be freedom from stupidity. Freedom from the self-destructiveness that seems inherent in our species. But the very thing that separates us from all other species is the high degree of mental ability we have and this ability seems to come with a built in curse (perhaps it's what many religions refer to as 'original sin') that is a self- awareness which permits us -- even lures us -- to doubts and fears which no other species endures. We truly are our own worst enemy. I feel it is our awareness coupled with this self-destructiveness that when expressed via the aggressive natures we still carry, leads to much of the misery you speak of. Perhaps it is this which we still have to conquer in order to achieve the greatest of freedoms, freedom from ignorance, fear, guilt, and our own aggressive natures.
