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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Things to Come

The world of the future should have:

1) Free Institutions and Free Markets;

2) Free Religion.

I suppose now you are going to be tedious and ask me what "Free Religion" is. Well, let's think about it for a while. The very fact that "freedom" and "religion" conjoined together may strike us as unnatural and somehow licentious is a good indication of where our heads are at right now.
Think about why it seems odd.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't have to think long. Although theoretically religion is supposed to liberate, in practice it imprisons.

Montag said...

Yes, exactly as we imprison the bonsai willow trees indoors.

Intelligent beings are always in danger of an epidemic of creativity, whether for good or ill.

So far in history, we have called for master judges to judge us, master gardeners to prune us, and master theologians to guide us in prayer....
when will we educate each and every human into a self sufficiency where we teach them how to support themselves in a universe which - to all appearances - is cold and uncaring?

All of us put up with our prison guards and wardens as long as they can deliver on the material benefits.
We saw how this begins to break down back in 2008.
If we wish to overthrow our oppressors, we must educate ourselves on living in freedom!

Unknown said...

Yes, but aren't you talking about the kind of freedom that the freedom-loving people of this country don't want to allow under any circumstances? For I think you mean, not only self-sufficiency but free thought.

I was reading a very interesting piece by Chris Hedges yesterday in which he talks about how truly radical voices of dissent have long been silenced and how the very concepts--socialism, communism, etc.--have been erased from the debate, such as it is.

Montag said...

I agree with you; this country is not going to be the "wave of the future".

On the second point, once again I'm not clear if we are talking about "mainstream: entertain with talking heads" type of cable circuses, or something else.
Voices may be there, but they may be far from the mainstream.
And maybe some concepts deserve to pass on, at least in the old forms with which we were familiar. These concepts are very complex, and I for one could not tell you if someone talking about social welfare was talking Marx, Leo XIII, or Mother Theresa...

Unknown said...

No we're not talking about entertainment. We're talking about genuine dissent. The point is, substantial dissent against the prevailing economic/political structure is essentially silenced.

Montag said...

Substantial in the sense of a reasoned critique.

There is a lot of dissent that is inchaote, and ends up voting for the party out of power at the time for a protest vote.

But little of the philosophical alienation...

I guess that's our job.