Ralph Nader on personal freedom vs civic freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TxA_WOySlM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TxA_WOySlM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPGHBLcLtc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPGHBLcLtc)
This is the old question that was at the heart of Rousseau's blathering that influenced the "founding fathers".
The difficulty of insuring personal freedom while maintaining civic responsibility. He called it "the social contract"
http://www.philosophyetc.net/2005/04/rousseau-and-freedom.html (http://www.philosophyetc.net/2005/04/rousseau-and-freedom.html)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/275/ (http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/275/)
Quote
Since no man has any natural authority over his fellow men, and since force is not the source of right, conventions remain as the basis of all lawful authority among men.
Now, as men cannot create any new forces, but only combine and direct those that exist, they have no other means of self-preservation than to form by aggregation a sum of forces which may overcome the resistance, to put them in action by a single motive power, and to make them work in concert.
This sum of forces can be produced only by the combination of many; but the strength and freedom of each man being the chief instruments of his preservation, how can he pledge them without injuring himself, and without neglecting the cares which he owes to himself? This difficulty, applied to my subject, may be expressed in these terms.
"To find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property of every associate, and by means of which each, coalescing with all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before." Such is the fundamental problem of which the social contract furnishes the solution.
If then we set aside what is not of the essence of the social contract, we shall find that it is reducible to the following terms: "Each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will, and in return we receive every member as an indivisible part of the whole."
On a related note, the BBC aired a three part documentary by Adam Curtis called "The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom? (http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap)" that might be worth inserting into your consciousness for a while to see how it might fit.
Quote from: RighteousDude on December 27, 2012, 10:20:54 AM
On a related note, the BBC aired a three part documentary by Adam Curtis called "The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom? (http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap)" that might be worth inserting into your consciousness for a while to see how it might fit.
Found it on YouTube also:
http://youtu.be/gZt2HhFXB3M (http://youtu.be/gZt2HhFXB3M)