Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Sec19 Grp1: -Rousseau-

To Rousseau, being "free" did not necessarily mean being "free." To further society, individuals are given certain amounts of freedom, but he argued that close-quartered society is what corrupts our freedom and that restrictions need to be placed on it. Within a hard-to-define frame, people should be allowed to do whatever they want, so long as it benefits society. While most people would be against it, our example of raising the taxes would benefit society, so Rousseau thought this raising was necessary.

This philosophy reminds me of the movie Hot Fuzz. In it, the corrupt Neighborhood Watch Alliance is in total control of the town of Sandford. In order to win the coveted Village of the Year award, anyone deemed unnecessary or not beneficial to the town as a whole is murdered to protect its perfectness. So, in a sense, regardless of what the villagers wanted to do with their lives, their society told them they could only pick certain occupations because only certain ones were needed. I think Rousseau's concept of the General Will (whatever is best for the community instead of just the individual), albeit in hopefully less extreme scenarios, is reminiscent of this.

We went on to talk about Rousseau's great paradox: if one chooses not to be free, he or she will be "forced" to be free. Here, free meant fulfilling a beneficial societal position. Being a component of model society is what makes us truly free, so contributing to it would mean making society better, thus making us freer. In essence, to be free, we have to think in terms of the General Will and act accordingly.

To sum it up:
Individual < Community
Feelings < Obligations

4 comments:

  1. Jeremy Brooks11:02 PM CDT

    I can only wonder if anyone thought how exactly one was to be made free in the case an individual who, in one way or another, refuse to be in Rousseau's definition.

    Hegel
    FQ: In what ways can the "Spirit" be defined according to Hegel?
    DQ: In what ways could the "Spirit" progress in it's understanding of freedom after our generation? In what ways do we understand freedom better than our previous generation? Are there really any examples of either?

    ReplyDelete
  2. FQ: Hegel's view that history would unfold in a particular way inspired what philosopher?
    DQ: Thesis-antithesis-synthesis: How do you know when the spirit truly understands?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't feel society is too far off from what Rousseau's ideal was. There are major key differences yet it seems a rough model can be applied to this society.

    FQ:What Philosophers did Hegel irritate? Why?
    DQ: How does Hegel's view of "reality" mirror that of cycle? that is constant change?

    ReplyDelete
  4. FQ: In Hegels book what struggles did he talk about between what two people?
    DQ: Has our society today actually change that much?

    ReplyDelete

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