For a while, I've been thinking and talking about starting a movement. Being weary of the American system, I want to ferment change. I don't expect to do this through a blog, but what a blog can become is the simplest of soap boxes, a platform from which I can state my views and philosophies in a plain and honest matter. This is more of an intensely public journal, a safe place where I can examine the world, it's problems, and aimlessly brainstorm on how to fix them. I stand behind anything I say on this blog because otherwise there's no point in claiming them as my words, but comment and disagree, change my mind if you can.
I will be exercising my right to free speech (that's what blogs are for) but what this won't become is a series of inflammatory statements designed to insult people, nor a thundering of praise and glory for anyone else. Neither will I try to force an ideology on anyone, that's peer pressure. My main goal is to simply sift through politics and what makes them tick, to find the theory of a possible perfect system. This page is a colander for my thoughts, separating crude thoughts from refined ideas.
The first concept I want to figure out is the most American: Freedom. The human right to happiness, success, and enlightenment. Liberty is indeed an entangled concept, with several queries as to where it begins and ends. What actions and words can be considered free?
"The right to swing your fist ends where my face begins" is one of the simplest but most exact definitions of freedom ever encountered. A free man can do whatever he pleases, yet the instant his actions impede upon another's happiness freedom ends, and he has become an oppressor. In a truly free world, there can be no oppression. The instant you hold someone down, or deter them in some way, you are taking away their humanity, leaving them naked in the wind. Creating rules for the common good however, is not a deterrence of freedom, as it falls into the government's role, which is to protect it's people. Think of where we would be without police. Yes, it can be a tool of persecution, but it is necessary to our safety in the same way the militia was 200 years ago.
Can you limit speech if it is derogatory or insulting? Some people would say absolutely not, if they don't like it let them plug their ears. This is pretty hard to do when you scream it at them all the way from their house to their job. Can you tell someone, 'don't say that, it's mean'? No, but you can nip it in the bud, and eliminate the ignorance necessary to verbally assault someone you don't even know through racial slurs(shouldn't exist, we're all people), or other comments on their appearance, which is why in a free system, education is the most important factor. One of a weak education lacks the skills to properly attack an opponent, by knowing him and finding the real distinction between them so that it can be solved.
This definition is incomplete, and I will revisit in later posts, forming it like clay until I have an idea so perfectly constructed, or at least wrapped in a language so that it is an undeniable ideal, a foundation on which to build. Rome wasn't built in a day, and this could take years.
Interesting transformation from free man to oppressor. Although, I think you should also take a moment out to decide what 'happiness' means, and whether or not the free man's action impeding upon another's happiness is intentional or not, and whether or not that would really make a difference, although it might alter what the free man becomes. To be an oppressor, for me seems to suggest a conscious decision to oppress. Unintentionally impeding upon another's happiness may alter the relationship. I think, perhaps, that there is a daily occurrence of this. If I cut someone in line to get on the bus, I impede on their happiness, and thus become an oppressor? I suppose, your application of the terms work well.
ReplyDeletebut isn't an unintentional act outside of freedom?
ReplyDeleteoppression=repression??? In our minds, we repress ourselves daily (and deny ourselves). We repress our desires, the small ones (when to eat) and the big (killing) Perhaps there is no true freedom in our our minds then? Perhaps too much of a good thing concept applies? Too much freedom and then there is no civilization. Concepts applies law to things that happen in nature, defines and limits them. hmm, my thoughts are not very organized, just thinking.
ReplyDelete!!!! Sometimes I seriously wonder in the case of the word niggah-- And how you told me it's not legal to say it...
ReplyDeleteThe same whip cracker people who made it a word of hate, once seeing the pain it caused transformed into a casual collequialism-- made it illegal. Talk about adding insult to fucking injury.
What I'm trying to say is you made me think! yay!
nigga isn't illegal because technically it's not a word. but nigger had a moratorium (spelled that right, first try) placed on it by local black legislators. the whip crackers don't live up here
ReplyDeleteand zhi is right, there is alot of repression in daily human life. me and trish were talking one day, and there are so many ways we force ourselves into societal norms, the biggest being language. if it wasn't forced on us, we'd all have our own crazy languages. so, for communication's sake, maybe repression isn't such a terrible thing if it's self imposed, and doesn't keep you from being happy with yourself.
ReplyDelete