The nature of freedom and justice

[ericksolvi]

The goal of man should be to reach beyond himself. To overcome humanity and be that which is over man.

Those who have said that pleasure (sex, food, happiness) is the goal are victims of programming. The ruling elite knowing that a mass desire for true freedom/happiness is a danger to them have found ways to plant a false idea of freedom/happiness. Pleasure and complete freedom from authority are goals for children, that only serve our oppressors. As some of you read this you will feel bitter hatred for me/my ideas. I only seek to bring you utopia. Ask yourself is your rejection constructive to the cause.

True freedom is based upon a desire for that which is rational (truth and knowledge). The rational can accept reasonable limitations on their personal freedom, that serve the greater good. Irrational loathing of all authority is a planted desire, a way to divide our movement.

Above the entrance to Plato's academy hung the words "Let none Pass here who have not studied Mathematics". He was not strictly speaking about math as we think of it. To Plato true justice was based on a mathematical way of looking at the world. Cold, authoritarian, and inhuman as that may seem, it is just. True justice makes true freedom. Emotional idealism keeps people from achieving mathematical reasoning.

The best communistic system would place the good of the community above the desires of the individual. In fact it would place the good of the individual above the desires of the individual. This means that society has the right to use force to prevent an individual from doing harm to self or others, and would be remiss if it failed to do so.

These concepts are not out of line with Marx. Marx saw a world where force was used for the benefit of the bourgeoisie elite, and condemned that kind of authoritarianism. Condemnation of the existing police as capitalist enforcers, does not mean that there will be no police post revolution. The revolution will need an army to defend it from outside attack, and police to defend it from internal sabotage.

To achieve true human liberation you must overcome your falls ideas about what liberation is. Flawed beliefs about what freedom is are in fact part of a cage that holds you back from true freedom. Justice and freedom are not people running around stoned out of their minds naked, because that's what feels good to them.

We will all truly be free when we can bow down to one another and swear that we will all place the good of the whole above our petty desires. Freedom through submission to the greater good will save the human race. The arrogance of self must die so that the glory of the selfless may rise.

[EvilRedGuy]

And the freedom to learn and be whatever we want. No one should be forced to a specific job/task. I agree that we need community-like society, however the majority shouldn't have exclusive rights over the individuals freedom, if they want to pursue their own "mission" in life.

[tir1944]

What exactly is a "community-like society"?

[EvilRedGuy]

What exactly is a "community-like society"?


A society in which all resource are shared and created together?

Communism? Think native americans minus the gender roles and slavery.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Greater good for whom and on what basis? Talk of freedom in class society is meaningless without taking class into consideration. There is no reason other than preventing harm to others for workers to regulate the individual desires and pleasures of other people. In class societies the ruling class has either dolled out surplus wealth and leisure in order to preserve their rule; that particular organization of society that allowed them to have freedom on the backs of others. In class societies, the rulers needed morals and customs that reinforced their rule and that order of society. Workers, however, don't need to control others to make society run, they only need to control eachother - i.e. coordinate with eachother - i.e. democracy. Additionally they don't need to create idealistic morality to enforce their organization of society, though they may need to pass some laws or rules at first in order to prevent former capitalists from re-establishing their rule.

[hatzel]

Sounds a bit like Rousseau to me:


In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.

Sounds pretty strange to me to claim that these civil undertakings would be "absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses" (pretty strong words, I think you'll agree) if it weren't for the fact this tyranny is supposedly in the best interests of those subject to it, who clearly don't know what's good for them. Seems to suggest that one would have to accept the legitimacy of the intentions, so as to justify what are, in Rousseau's own words, tyrannical actions.

Whilst we're on the subject of Rousseau, I'd like to ask your opinion on this:


Right men's opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated.

[...]

The censorship upholds morality by preventing opinion from growing corrupt, by preserving its rectitude by means of wise applications, and sometimes even by fixing it when it is still uncertain.

Excuse me whilst I vomit in my mouth...but for some reason I feel you'll consider it a good idea for this post-revolutionary authority to implement such policies...

[todd]

Greater good for whom and on what basis? Talk of freedom in class society is meaningless without taking class into consideration. There is no reason other than preventing harm to others for workers to regulate the individual desires and pleasures of other people. In class societies the ruling class has either dolled out surplus wealth and leisure in order to preserve their rule; that particular organization of society that allowed them to have freedom on the backs of others. In class societies, the rulers needed morals and customs that reinforced their rule and that order of society. Workers, however, don't need to control others to make society run, they only need to control eachother - i.e. coordinate with eachother - i.e. democracy. Additionally they don't need to create idealistic morality to enforce their organization of society, though they may need to pass some laws or rules at first in order to prevent former capitalists from re-establishing their rule.

Class society is what we seek to eliminate, is it not? So why do we need to constantly consider it, when we're trying to move beyond it?
It's like Christians constantly talking about hell and the devil.
Post revolution there will be no ruling class, if all goes according to plan.
The OP lays out a framework for justice and reasonable restriction of freedom that is independent of class struggle. It's like the line from Wrath of Khan, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one". In the communist utopia the only restrictions on personal freedom needed will be ones that defend the whole of the community. It is therefor 100% applicable in a post class society.
I know that Marxist Materialism makes it hard for some to accept any idea of an objective right and wrong. Because in the past right and wrong have been a vailled concepts created by and for the needs of the ruling class. After the revolution we will enter a state of post materialism, and actually be able to start deciding things free from the influence of the ruling class, that will no longer exist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Class society is what we seek to eliminate, is it not? So why do we need to constantly consider it, when we're trying to move beyond it?Because that's the world we live in - you can't achieve flight without first understanding and considering gravity.


It's like Christians constantly talking about hell and the devil.No, because we know that capitalism exists and we are in it, most Christians don't believe they are in hell and they can't prove it even if they did think earth was hell.


Post revolution there will be no ruling class, if all goes according to plan.
The OP lays out a framework for justice and reasonable restriction of freedom that is independent of class struggle. It's like the line from Wrath of Khan, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one". In the communist utopia the only restrictions on personal freedom needed will be ones that defend the whole of the community. It is therefor 100% applicable in a post class society.

I know that Marxist Materialism makes it hard for some to accept any idea of an objective right and wrong. Because in the past right and wrong have been a vailled concepts created by and for the needs of the ruling class. After the revolution we will enter a state of post materialism, and actually be able to start deciding things free from the influence of the ruling class, that will no longer exist.Universal, yes - objective, no - but maybe I'm, just being semantic about it. "Right" and "wrong" would still be based on the social organization of that society, an organization IMO based immediately on proletarian democracy, then just democracy and eventually mutuality (communism). This kind of society could have the possibility of universalism unlike class societies but I don't know if "objective" is really the term I'd use because it just makes it sound like it's totally separate from social organization and human agency.

[todd]

[/QUOTE] This kind of society could have the possibility of universalism unlike class societies but I don't know if "objective" is really the term I'd use because it just makes it sound like it's totally separate from social organization and human agency.[/QUOTE]

That's the point.
Justice, right wrong, freedom, as defined in by social organization and the human agency, are variable and therefor the argument can be made that they aren't real. That they are only responses to the current situation. More or less I'm saying Justice, morality (just another term for right and wrong), and freedom, being defined by social organization is reactionary, and we all loath reactionaries.
Objective definitions of justice, morality, and freedom, depend on first objectifying humanity, this is very materialist actually. People become objects in a big math equation. It might sound like an insult to human dignity, but it's only an attempt to gain perspective.
This objectification achieves your universal standard. Morality becomes math, justice becomes accounting (looking at the human equation to see if there's a discrepancy), and freedom becomes everything you can do without violating the human equation.