Tuesday, October 11, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet - Freedom and Oppression

Will freedom always give way to oppression? I ask this question because idealism in relation to freedom always must allow the possibility of oppression... Free speech, for example to be truly free must uphold individual rights to speak loudly against free speech itself even as well as anything else. So in relation to freedoms in general: the preserving of freedoms seems to naturally lean toward self negation since preserving freedom either requires the oppression of those who would seek to destroy it or its sublation into the oppressive desires and designs of free people. We love and hate freedom because our world exists between the dialectic of freedom/chaos and law/order. As we attempt to order and inscribe freedom into law we attempt to hold the thesis and anti thesis in tension but fail at true synthesis...

Is the natural conclusion of development always self negation? The capitalist becomes philanthropist (eg Bill Gates)

Žižek sees in this process evidence of Hegel's "negation of the negation", the third moment of the dialectic. The first negation is the mutation of the content within and in the name of the old form. The second negation is the obsolescence of the form itself. In this way, something becomes the opposite of itself, paradoxically, by seeming to strengthen itself. - Wikipedia

So are we doomed to a cycle of democracy negated by totalitarianism, which births democratic revolution? Is it possible to critique democracy without negating it? Is the combination of capitalism and globalization produce necessarily negative results due to human nature? How does globalization affect personal responsibility? Did you know that Britain does not have a constitution? At what point is a system bad enough that we are willing to endure worse in hopes of better? Can creation occur without destruction/chaos?

1 comment:

  1. Does freedom always die?

    using a Christian example:

    If we accept Jesus as God's ultimate act of freedom - Jesus is killed.

    Is the preservation of freedom always through martyrdom?

    Does martyrdom always preserve freedom?

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