50% of a 500 words vocabulary
about positive freedom vs. negative freedom
Sun, December 9, 2007 - 8:45 PMpositive freedom, or positive liberty (as coined by isaiah berlin, a political philosopher, 20th century), stands for supported freedom.
it basically means that each person will be supported in his or her strive to fulfill their potential. it comes down to subsidized education, public transportation and healthy food, among other things.
negative freedom (or liberty) stands for freedom from limitations. that is when the government says, it's ok, honey, you can study to become a rocket scientist if you have it in you, we're not saying you can't, go ahead, do it. not that we'll help you in any way, but, hey, we are giving you the liberty to do it by not taking that liberty away from you.
same goes for eating healthy; they'll say, please, by all means, eat healthy food; we'll sometimes even tell you what might be healthy for you,and draw diagrams and pyramids for you, but it's up to you to find it and pay for it, even though it is way more expensive than the bad stuff.
we also want you to feel free to get a great job; you don't have transportation? take the bus! yes, it comes to your area only twice a day and it's not cheap, and you'll have to switch twice on the way, but, please, feel the freedom to do so. we are not standing in your way.
in a positive liberty mind set (like in canada, france, holland, sweden,israel, greece, just to name a few), they'll say, oh, yeah, please eat food that's good for you, and you know what, we'll make it as easy as we can for you to get it: we'll subsidize the best bread, the one that behaves like real bread, you know, dries out after a day and goes bad after two days. we'll also make it available everywhere around the country, so if you choose to eat healthy, you actually can. and we'll do the same thing with the best milk and vegies, and we'll subsidize public transportation and make it inexpensive and widely available, so you don't have to have a car to have a life, and we'll even subsidize school, how about that. but of course it's up to you to use all this, you don't have to.
that's mostly it.
the usa is used often as a model for negative freedom.
the way i see it, we have, here in the usa, the freedom from information.
Sun, December 9, 2007 - 8:45 PM -
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Sun, December 9, 2007 - 8:54 PM
and the fault in that lies with whom??
one thing we can do is positively support one another. the government won't do it for us, and i'm not sure i would ever trust them to do it in any effective way....look at their track record....katrina? we have to take matters into our own hands on a local level. |
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Sun, December 9, 2007 - 11:07 PM
yes, auntie, i agree, we the people have to mold our communities to meet our needs. only, we are so busy surviving, everything is just such a struggle here, that the power was taken from us. that's exactly why positive freedom is necessary for democracy; without support we just have not much (time, energy, spirit) left for political or communal activity, and there goes our social involvement and responsibility.
not only our government doesn't help us, but they also tell us that we have it better than anybody else, it's the best place in the world, haven't you heard? and most of us beleive it because we have never experienced life elsewhere. it goes further than just voting. i'd like to be able to vote for a *change*, not just to vote. you know how they always say here, if you don't vote, don't complain. but we are not given a choice here; we have to vote for one of a couple of very similar possibilities. it's like a mother asking a child to choose between two t-shirts. its absurd how much money you need to run for office in this country; i wish there were a law against using private money here (they have such laws in other democracies), then we might see some people running to whom we can relate and vote for. |
