Banach Brings up excellent but questionable points in this lecture.
He talks mainly about how people can't be free unless they brings their own desires and needs that will not only help succeed for themselves only but for amm men as wel. When Banach states that " To be free, then, I must follow the golden rule and act only as I would have others act." I disagree with that totally. To me I feel that to be free is to have your own decisions made with out outside influences and people creating you. I also think to be free is to be able to do what you want when you want. So when Banach made that statement I felt that there was no golden rule to follow because How can you be free if the decisions you have to make, has to benifit everybody? You are an individual and you should have that RIGHT to choose whether you want YOUR decision that YOU decided to make, help others. Also when he made the statement and said "When I act freely, the only things that can affect my action must be things that I share with all free agents." I felt that it wasn't being free. Since we are "free", shouldn't we have the right to make decisions that would help others? Us having to make decisions that are apon everybody in order to be free is wrong and I don't agree with it in no way.
Banach also brings up another topic that hit me. He talks about we have to want freedom for everyody not just ourselves. He say's that we can't be free if all we care about is ourselves being free rather then everybody being free then we aren't free at all, it's being selfish. But again, I have to disagree with that. We are INDIVIDUALS right? We should have our right to make sure that WE only are free before anybody else? Thats what confuses banach, He say's that we are individuals, but then he say's that we can't think about only ourselves, we have to think about every body. When he states that "To be free, We must desire the freedom of all men", it really makes me wonder why he thinks that way. It makes me want to ask him "How is having desires of other people being free, ACTUALLY MAKING ME FREE?" I don't think that there is answer for that. It's like saying me wanting people in around me to be free in order for me to be free. If my desires doesn't require their freedom then I am not free. That doesn't make sense, which is why I disagree with Banach on this point. It sor of makes when think like " How can my desires be for everybody to be free if I don't even know 100% what is means to actually BE FREE?
Banach Say's " To be free we must take on the responsibilty of choosing for all men, we must desire and work for the freedom of all men, and we must create ourselves within the context of the relaionships and obligations we have to other people"
.......this isn't right.
When does our own personal choice for our own freedom come into place? We only live one life, and we all want freedom, so why should we be forced into making decisions for other people's lives? That being said, will we ever be free? I think Banach statement isn't right at all because everybody wants to be free. And if everybody is choosing for all men, then who we listen too? Which is the right desire's to go by? I just think Banach feel's freedom should be individual's wanting freedom for other people not just theirselves.
In the end, a question was brought up asking " Do you think we ae FREE?"
I do think we are free in a way because at the end of the day we have to right to do what we want , we can make any decisions we want. But because of the the Rules and Laws that we have in the world that we live that we go by, it sort of limits our freedom of actually "doing what we want" in a way. Saying that, it also makes me think that we aren't free because we as individuals will always care about our own needs and care about our own desires and freedom. And to Banach that would mean we aren't free and we don't act "freely".
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Charles!
ReplyDeleteYour ffirst paragraph strikes me, except for the spelling of "all" which you spelled "amm". Anyways, I alwayys wanted to disagree with Banach with that point of his but I could not put my finger on what was wrong with his point until I read your post. You are absolutely correct, there is no golden rule to follow. How can we really be free if we have to worry about whether or not other people are free? We are individuals and we have the freedom to choose what to do!
To answer your question, I still think that mentally and/or spiritually, we are free; we are free to think what we want. However, we are restricted to what we can do physically and this, is where our freedom no longer becomes freedom.
Thanks for your post, it helped me clarify my own thinking.
I liked the ideas you brought up, you talked about how people have to want freedom for other people, which can be a confusing idea in terms of perspective, you thought about it using Banach's reasoning that we can't live other lives. Thinking about it logically, everyone in the class has this thought (because we all read the article) so what if someone in the class didn't think it mattered that other people were free and someone else did, there'd be conflict there. Who decides which desire gets fulfilled? how is it decided? the only answer I can think of is that it doesn't matter weather you want other people to free or not, they ultimately have to choose, much like the saying "you can't help someone unless they help themselves".
ReplyDeleteYou also talked about how the law limits our freedom. Is it really the law that limits our freedom or the consequences of the law that make us limit ourselves? The law itself doesn't prevent crime it punishes crime that already happens. For example, in the case of murder, murder happens regardless of the law, so the law doesn't prevent murder, it only punishes the murderer once they're caught. The law makes people avoid the punishment and not want to break the law. So my question to you is this, does the law limit our freedom, or does the fear of the law make us limit ourselves?