Fearing Freedom

[Dunk]

Is there anything substantial to suggesting a subject can fear her own freedom? Or is it just radical vanity?

[Desperado]

Definitely. The fact that "everything is permitted" is quite scary.

[#FF0000]

Not sure what you're looking for or what you'd call "substantial", but I was thinking about it and I think this whole think where people are all gung-ho about work like there is some inherent virtue in it (I WORK 80 HRS A WEEK I DONT NEED BENEFITS) is borne out of a sort of 'fear of freedom'.

[Ele'ill]

Not sure what you're looking for or what you'd call "substantial", but I was thinking about it and I think this whole think where people are all gung-ho about work like there is some inherent virtue in it (I WORK 80 HRS A WEEK I DONT NEED BENEFITS) is borne out of a sort of 'fear of freedom'.


Siding with the bosses in a lot of situations is this too even if it repeatedly yields shit for the snitch.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I think there is some inherent fear of the 'unknown' that is freedom from the constraints, constructs and routines capitalism provides. I sometimes worry what would really happen if the bosses and the presidents and whoever else were gone, what would we do and would it wind up being better?
It's a fear well worth over-coming and facing though :)

[Mr. Natural]

Life is a systemic process based in the organization of the cell. People are systemic processes based in cellular organization, too. Life and the cosmos are systems, systems, systems; human beings are living systems.

Living systems are dynamic systems with established organizational relations that resist change, whether the change is physical or mental. Thus longterm prisoners become institutionalized (systematized) and commonly fear release, and new ideas are initially opposed by human minds (established mental systems).

Living systems must possess a base organization from which they engage the world. They are organized, not chaotic, and this organization must maintain its "self" and resist falling apart (death).

Thus people--living systems--will be resistant to change, and freedom represents change. But change is also essential to life: evolution is a prominent example. Life must maintain a dynamic equilibrium--a moving balance.

Revolutionaries must thus learn to engage a populace that is inherently resistant to change and "freedom"--a populace that now desperately needs to "go to revolution." It is my belief this can only come about through the practice of anarchist/communist forms of community. Talk is cheap; only praxis can attract and educate people to their revolutionary needs and "freedom."

Aboveground revolutionary groups can develop such relations and practices and model them to others.

My red-green best.

[Rafiq]

Definitely. The fact that "everything is permitted" is quite scary.

Lacan (yeah, yeah, I know, he's a jackass) once said that if there is no God, everything is prohibited because there doesn't exist a supreme being to regulate and sustain and justify our wrongdoings. Think about it, and shit, you know?

[Rafiq]

You shouldn't fight for freedom. You should fight for your own emancipation.

[Dunk]

You shouldn't fight for freedom. You should fight for your own emancipation.

I understand the usefulness in differentiating between bourgeois freedom and liberation, but I meant freedom in the sense of a full emancipatory freedom, ie the kind only possible with the common control of production and the abolition of wage labor.

Fighting sounds good. I'd like to fight. Just don't know what that means, and what does any good.

I'm a really pessimistic bastard

[Dunk]

Not sure what you're looking for or what you'd call "substantial", but I was thinking about it and I think this whole think where people are all gung-ho about work like there is some inherent virtue in it (I WORK 80 HRS A WEEK I DONT NEED BENEFITS) is borne out of a sort of 'fear of freedom'.

Just another way of asking "is there something really to it, and is understanding that something of some use?"

[Beeth]

A prison, however painful, gives us a sense of security. Freedom on the other hand opens the door to uncertainty.

[Rafiq]

A prison, however painful, gives us a sense of security.

Does it now?

[o well this is ok I guess]

Does it now? Whether or not prison is safe isn't the point. The University of Toronto's library is intimidating as fuck until you remember that it's full of books.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Does it now? Whether or not prison is actually safe isn't the point, so long as it projects the image. The University of Toronto's library is intimidating as fuck until you remember that it's full of books.

[cynicles]

Define freedom, it seems rather vague.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

You see fear of freedom in people who give up anarchism, they think there are too many risks involved with a libertarian society, so they start supporting an authoritarian one.
This is fear of freedom.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

You shouldn't fight for freedom. You should fight for your own emancipation.

That is negative freedom.

[#FF0000]

That is negative freedom.

The distinction between negative and positive freedom is silly, tbh.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

The distinction between negative and positive freedom is silly, tbh.

It is not silly, if there was no distinction, you could not distinguish the liberty anarchists fight for and the liberty you fight for.