freedom or security...

[butchersapron]

for the purposes of this thread, i define freedom as the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and life.

Security, on the other hand, is the situation where one attempts to avoid the imposition by others on one's own life. It is usually associated with avoiding violence on oneself.

Freedom is about how one conducts oneself, whereas security is how one hopes to avoid others conducting themselves upon them. Or, in other words, freedom is in our own personal control, related to being independent; whereas security depends on others, leaving us dependent.

Which do posters value the more?

What does this 'ability' consist of? What are its defining characteristics?

What is 'responsibility'?

How does one 'take responsibility' - how does one go about it?

How do we know when 'responsibility' has been 'taken'?

How does this 'taking responsibility' mean that you are free/in a state of freedom?

 

[fela fan]

What does this 'ability' consist of? What are its defining characteristics?

What is 'responsibility'?

How does one 'take responsibility' - how does one go about it?

How do we know when 'responsibility' has been 'taken'?

How does this 'taking responsibility' mean that you are free/in a state of freedom?

When you see a person not engaging in blame.

Check the dictionary for further help.

Don't blame others for the happenings in your life.

When that person is observed to not be blaming others for their own happenings in life.

It doesn't mean you're in a state of freedom, but it is a necessary condition for achieving that freedom.

 

[butchersapron]

Ok, one at a time:

"the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and life." = When you see a person not engaging in blame.

Why does this constitute freedom?

What if someone or something is to 'blame' for an action or situation?

(Is there a greeting card message or self-help forum btw?)

 

[fela fan]

What if someone or something is to 'blame' for an action or situation?

Well, your level of freedom on life can be measured entirely based on your reaction to their action.

As for things causing problems, well, again, either you kick your car fawlty-like, or you accept it calmly.

Y'see butchers, every time you engage in negative reactions in life, you are not in freedom. Those people who avoid reacting negatively most of all, are the ones who achieve a greater degree of freedom. At the other end of the cline, those people who cannot stop themselves from blaming others, will never be free.

Maybe you can start to see the role of taking responsibility... or, more likely, maybe not.

 

[Dillinger4]

Well, your level of freedom on life can be measured entirely based on your reaction to their action.

As for things causing problems, well, again, either you kick your car fawlty-like, or you accept it calmly.

Y'see butchers, every time you engage in negative reactions in life, you are not in freedom. Those people who avoid reacting negatively most of all, are the ones who achieve a greater degree of freedom. At the other end of the cline, those people who cannot stop themselves from blaming others, will never be free.

Maybe you can start to see the role of taking responsibility... or, more likely, maybe not.

I am sorry, I have to say this. And it is what I have been saying all along.

All I see in this is airy meaningless empty sentences, about 'negativity' and 'blame'. It is lifted straight out of new age self improvement guides.

It has no connection with actual lived experience. You cant be 'in' freedom.

You react to anybody who asks questions as somebody being 'negative'.

Nobody can ask questions, because then they are being 'negative', and you automatically label them as closed minds.

Butchers has asked valid questions that your airy new age-ism simply has no answers for, except empty cliches.

 

[NoEgo]

There is no price for freedom!

But because the price for freedom is self-responsibility, some find that too scary a prospect!

Everybody gets what they want in life!

 

[Hi-ASL]

I patiently await my tropical island in the sun.

 

[fela fan]

It has no connection with actual lived experience. You cant be 'in' freedom.

All my philosophy and all my postings on this forum are based on my own experiences in life.

Therefore this statement of yours is 100% factually wrong, but 100% subjectively correct.

See the difference if you can.

 

[fela fan]

I patiently await my tropical island in the sun.

Why bother waiting?

 

[Hi-ASL]

Because it seems like the more I chase it the further away it gets, fela fan. I'm starting to think it might be a mirage.

 

[Dillinger4]

There is no price for freedom!

But because the price for freedom is self-responsibility, some find that too scary a prospect!

Everybody gets what they want in life!

Yeh, like the Jews in the Holocaust.

 

[Dillinger4]

All my philosophy and all my postings on this forum are based on my own experiences in life.

Therefore this statement of yours is 100% factually wrong, but 100% subjectively correct.

See the difference if you can.

It doesn't matter how many times you tell everybody it is based on your 'life experience', it still has pretty much no connection to real life lived experience.

It is telling that despite the contradictions and flaws pointed out over and over again on this thread, and the other, that your view has not been revised. It is almost as though your mind is already made up, it cannot be improved, and that you are closed to any suggestions that might make your notions of 'freedom' actually applicable to real life, instead of a hippy fantasy.

That is because all your ideas are born perfect, cannot be improved upon, and you are here to lecture everybody on how right you are. You cannot respond to any questions, you can only react by repeating the same cliches. It does not make for healthy debate.

Just hot air and fantasy.

 

[Al Kahul]

take the plunge -we did and never looked back.There are thousand just like us .

 

[Dillinger4]

take the plunge -we did and never looked back.There are thousand just like us .

Move to Thailand?

 

[fela fan]

It doesn't matter how many times you tell everybody it is based on your 'life experience', it still has pretty much no connection to real life lived experience.

Would that be dillinger's 'real life lived experience' then?

Because in my life it has 100% connection.

 

[Dillinger4]

Would that be dillinger's 'real life lived experience' then?

Because in my life it has 100% connection.

Really? Because your notions of 'freedom' have a complete disconnection from reality.

See the many contradictions pointed out on this thread.

 

[fela fan]

It is almost as though your mind is already made up...

I don't think you're consciously being a hypocrite, but if that's the case then the levels of self-deception you are practising are momentous. You're saying that about me, yet you are probably the poster on this forum with the most closed of all minds.

Interesting this... i mean the self-deception bit. It's really hard for open minds such as mine to understand. But i see it all over the place. So, at least you're in good company i suppose.

 

[Dillinger4]

I don't think you're consciously being a hypocrite, but if that's the case then the levels of self-deception you are practising are momentous. You're saying that about me, yet you are probably the poster on this forum with the most closed of all minds.

Interesting this... i mean the self-deception bit. It's really hard for open minds such as mine to understand. But i see it all over the place. So, at least you're in good company i suppose.

Are you projecting your own insecurities?

 

[fela fan]

Really? Because your notions of 'freedom' have a complete disconnection from reality.

Would that be dillinger's reality then? Just whose reality are you referring to? Or do you think there is only one reality? Coz that's the way your talking here. And if you do, then that would provide yet more evidence of a closed mind.

 

[fela fan]

Are you projecting your own insecurities?

The answer has to be no. Since i don't have any it would be impossible. No, i was simply describing you.

 

[Dillinger4]

Would that be dillinger's reality then? Just whose reality are you referring to? Or do you think there is only one reality? Coz that's the way your talking here. And if you do, then that would provide yet more evidence of a closed mind.

No, I am talking about human reality.

As opposed to hippy fantasy.

 

[fela fan]

No, I am talking about human reality.

Oh? Really? You can speak for six billion people can you dillinger? My, what a person.

 

[Dillinger4]

The answer has to be no. Since i don't have any it would be impossible. No, i was simply describing you.

It seems pretty insecure to not be able to take any criticism. If your argument were strong it would be able to stand up to criticism, and you wouldn't have to repeat the same cliche or throw a tantrum.

 

[Dillinger4]

Oh? Really? You can speak for six billion people can you dillinger? My, what a person.

Freedom is an incredibly complex concept.

It has not been solved by you posting some empty cliches about 'negativity'.

 

[Dillinger4]

Why is there no critical evaluation of your own ideas? Why can you not accept criticism?

 

[fela fan]

Why is there no critical evaluation of your own ideas? Why can you not accept criticism?

I can. But your variety is rather too insult-laden for me to accept. Get some manners first, and i might react to you in a different manner.

I constantly critically evaluate my own ideas, and i put them up for people to knock down so that if there is any faulty thinking i'll be better able to get back on track.

Your self-delusion appears to block your understanding of this. Now, it has come to pass, yet again, that i'm reacting to you in the same negative manner you behave towards me, and it's fucking up yet another thread on this forum. I'm failing in my ability to not react to insulting people. I will do my best to convert that failure. Why don't you try to do the same and stop obsessing over me and how far removed i am from your 'reality'?

 

[Dillinger4]

I can. But your variety is rather too insult-laden for me to accept. Get some manners first, and i might react to you in a different manner.

I constantly critically evaluate my own ideas, and i put them up for people to knock down so that if there is any faulty thinking i'll be better able to get back on track.

That is simply untrue, I am afraid. And that is the problem here, for me.

 

[Dillinger4]

for the purposes of this thread, i define freedom as the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and life.

Security, on the other hand, is the situation where one attempts to avoid the imposition by others on one's own life. It is usually associated with avoiding violence on oneself.

Freedom is about how one conducts oneself, whereas security is how one hopes to avoid others conducting themselves upon them. Or, in other words, freedom is in our own personal control, related to being independent; whereas security depends on others, leaving us dependent.

Which do posters value the more?

OK, Fela, lets do this properly.

Let us clear up the terms you have used, to make for a clearer argument.

Secrurity, as you define it, roughly corresponds to 'negative liberty'

The concept of negative liberty refers to freedom from interference by other people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty

Freedom, as you define it, roughly corresponds to 'positive liberty'

Positive liberty refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential, as opposed to negative liberty, which refers to freedom from restraint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty

Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative

Can we agree on this, as a starting point?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

for the purposes of this thread, i define freedom as the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and life.

Security, on the other hand, is the situation where one attempts to avoid the imposition by others on one's own life. It is usually associated with avoiding violence on oneself.

Freedom is about how one conducts oneself, whereas security is how one hopes to avoid others conducting themselves upon them. Or, in other words, freedom is in our own personal control, related to being independent; whereas security depends on others, leaving us dependent.

Which do posters value the more?

The former.

 

[fela fan]

dillinger

Firstly, after just reading the negative liberty entry (i'll read the other one in a minute), i can say interesting stuff.

But we need to rewind a bit before i comment on these defined liberties. You often tell me that i'm not commenting through lived in experience. But in fact that's all i do. By introducing concepts defined by philosophers in the past, you are taking me from my practice in life to other people's theories in life. Out of my lived in experience and into theories. I prefer doing practice first, then formulating theories, then testing them out. That's why my posts and threads in this forum spring from my own experiences in life.

If i knew everything, i'd not be here. There are many things i think i know or have worked out, and by posting them up here (or talking to mates about them), i get a double win situation: the very act of writing about stuff is a reflective process and can lead the writer into areas he's previously not been to, and secondly other people will comment and this may cause for reflection to.

When other people stray from the topic and instead feel compelled, for whatever reason, to start insulting the writer, then the waters are muddied, and the win-win situation is weakened if i reply in kind. I try not to.

Now, you and me seem to have two fundamentally different approaches to philosophy, neither of which is right or wrong. Yours appears to be book-based leading into life, whereas my approach is the lived-in one first, theorising second.