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Thursday, May 23, 2013

David Graeber — Two notions of liberty revisited - or how to disentangle Liberty and Slavery


Some background on the development of the concept of liberty in the West. We need to examine the concept of liberty-freedom closely in light of the current conflict in economics over the market state based on the right to unlimited acquisition of property and the welfare state based on the distribution of property between private use as "utility" advocated by neoliberalism and public use for public purpose advocated by social democracy. These are based on two different notions of freedom, the first being the master of oneself and the second that of the citizen of a polis.

Resilience

Two notions of liberty revisited - or how to disentangle Liberty and Slavery
David Graeber
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 24, 2013 at 6:43 AM

    Great essay on the Imperialist origins of the so-called "Liberty" of liberalism which is actually not a idea of liberation at all but one of domination.

    However, Graeber's claim that "To understand the history and, ultimately, incoherence of the notions of liberty grounded in Roman notions of dominion is to potentially free ourselves to re-imagine liberty" isn't quite right.

    The rejection of the voluntarism i.e. slavertarian ideas of the proto-liberal Imperialist Jean Gerson doesn't us show we got from debt peonage and slavery from to the truly modern republican concept which must reject slavery.

    There is another tradition that must also be studied to not just re-imagine but indeed rediscover in order to re-create the powerful revolutionary effects against monarchism and slavery that created this nation.

    David Graeber hints that he knows about that tradition perfectly well in that paragraph which reads; "To understand the history and, ultimately, incoherence of the notions of liberty grounded in Roman notions of dominion is to potentially free ourselves to re-imagine liberty...but also to resurrect the older notion of liberty as the state achieved by citizens acting together in determination of a common good."

    So why is he holding back?

    Is it perhaps that the truly radical concept of liberty is to dangerous?

    So dangerous that even Graeber like Voltaire merely gives lipservice to free thinking but won't actually talk about the ideas of the certain German not to be named cause the first rule of being a professional philosopher of high regard is don't talk about that guy... seriously...don't ever talk about that guy.


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  2. Matt FrankoMay 24, 2013 at 6:50 AM

    The most popular solution—to say that each of us has something called a "mind" and that this is completely separate from something else, which we can call "the body," and that the first thing holds natural dominion over the second—flies in the face of just about everything we now know about cognitive science. it's obviously untrue, but we continue to hold onto it anyway, "

    Sounds like cognitive science doesnt believe in 'free will' either...

    FD: I do not believe in any form of "free will"...

    Here is Luther on this subject, I agree with much (but not necessaritly all) that Luther writes here:

    http://www.reformedreader.org/bow.htm

    rsp,

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  3. AnonymousMay 24, 2013 at 2:15 PM

    hmm...Matt, I get where you are coming from but but I believe there is a kind of "free will" that exists when our wills align the creative unfolding of the universe as intended by the creator to use theological terms.

    I'm more with Tom's physical panpsyschism in nature than orthodox Christian view of a non-physical supernatural "God" sitting separate from his creation directing everything according to a Calvinistic script.

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  4. Matt FrankoMay 24, 2013 at 10:56 PM

    Sept,

    I dont believe in "one size fits all"...

    ie I believe there are different salvations ie "keeping" or "saving" for ALL humanity...

    But two things are for sure:

    "according to the purpose of the One Who is operating all in accord with the counsel of His will,"

    1. He reports to no one...

    And

    2. "all" means "ALL"...

    I dont care what Calvin wrote or Luther for that matter... I'm directly under Apostle Paul's teaching...

    rsp

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