TITHONUS' DIARY!!
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erkid mcberkid You know what I like? Freedom. Freedom is great. I like it so much, I want to be free all the time. - Hegel makes an argument that simply getting what you want isn't freedom because what you want is conditioned by the environment in which you grew up. Desire, in other words, is not an inherent property of the self or the soul but the "artificial" product of experience. This is something that advertisers know very well - you can be made to want things that you don't "really" want if you "experience" the right inputs. So, what is it that we really want, then? Hegel argues that the one thing that transcends all individual experience or momentary caprice is rationality, and so real freedom - what we "really" want, in other words - is to live in a society ordered by perfect rationality. I reckon that's crap. Freedom... I think freedom is more something to do with what it feels like to sit and ask yourself the question, "now, what shall I do next?" and having the time to think about it, and not knowing the answer. That's my definition of freedom, I think. - Hmm. - "Then one evening down by the river Straining pebbles through my hands A speck of gold stuck to my fingers In a flash I became a wealthy man" - Fred Eaglesmith |
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