My warm HELLO to all.. For past couple of days I have been reading blogs on iTimes like Nani's blog on convenient marriage and Somesh's blog on Samajwadi Party Manifesto and surfing channels with politicians debating on some or the other issue lead me to write this blog.. I plan to write it as and when ideas come to my mind.. Your comments and opinions, ideas and beliefs are welcome.
What is freedom? It is difficult question to answer categorically. Does it mean absolute liberty to do as one pleases? Complete non resilient to pursue any fancy that strikes one? Is such a free existence possible at all for a human being? Freedom, is, indeed a nebulous concept, laying itself open to several interpretations, even conflicting ones.
There are champions of freedom who vehemently oppose any form of social control. Thoreau at least allows the need of some government - " the best government is the least government" - but there are others who denounce any sort of organisation at all. But given the imperfect nature of human beings, surely such freedom would degenerate into anarchy and finally to the survival of the fittest in the sense of brute power. It would result in tyranny of the weak by the strong.
At the other extreme are those who are thoroughly suspicious of individual freedom. They have such a low opinion of human freedom that they can not allowan individual the right to choose. Any deviation from a rigid social average is seen as a threat to the society. Social equilibrium is the end -all to which individual initiative must perforce, be sacrificed. But such a society will soon lose its vibrant dynamism, become ponderous and static and finally collapse under the weight of its own rigidity.
The extreme thus can harm society. But one may deduce that freedom is a social concept. If human beings lived as individual entities, the meaning of freedom has no importance. It is because they live in groups, in societies, that the concept of individual freedom needs to be understood.
What is freedom? It is difficult question to answer categorically. Does it mean absolute liberty to do as one pleases? Complete non resilient to pursue any fancy that strikes one? Is such a free existence possible at all for a human being? Freedom, is, indeed a nebulous concept, laying itself open to several interpretations, even conflicting ones.
There are champions of freedom who vehemently oppose any form of social control. Thoreau at least allows the need of some government - " the best government is the least government" - but there are others who denounce any sort of organisation at all. But given the imperfect nature of human beings, surely such freedom would degenerate into anarchy and finally to the survival of the fittest in the sense of brute power. It would result in tyranny of the weak by the strong.
At the other extreme are those who are thoroughly suspicious of individual freedom. They have such a low opinion of human freedom that they can not allowan individual the right to choose. Any deviation from a rigid social average is seen as a threat to the society. Social equilibrium is the end -all to which individual initiative must perforce, be sacrificed. But such a society will soon lose its vibrant dynamism, become ponderous and static and finally collapse under the weight of its own rigidity.
The extreme thus can harm society. But one may deduce that freedom is a social concept. If human beings lived as individual entities, the meaning of freedom has no importance. It is because they live in groups, in societies, that the concept of individual freedom needs to be understood.
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