| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"Ed Cryer" |
| Date: |
03 Jan 2006 12:03:31 PM |
| Object: |
Freedom and Education |
"Freedom is not about doing what you want to do. It is best defined in
education. The better educated you are, the greater freedom you will
achieve".
John Hurt, actor, 65.
Now, I can make a kind of intuitive sense of this; but not much more. It's
the same with other similar things that you read; egs.
"Yet Freedom's banner, though tattered, stream's against the wind"
Byron
"Freedom is a universal toy"
Solzhenitsyn
This "freedom" is a buzz word today; it goes with things like "new",
"improved", "30% extra, free" (it's a pity that "free" has the meaning of
"no charge"; that's really added to the confusion!); and here's my attempt
to make some sense of it.
We're stuck with a subjective/objective understanding of the term.
Objectively it just means "lack of restrictions", "no tariffs", "not in
prison" etc.
But, subjectively...well, I can only appeal to my fellow humans and ask, do
these ring bells?
You've worked and worked and worked, and hoped, and tried...and taken the
exam, and passed. And something rushes through your inner self; some joy,
some sense of the worthwhileness of life.
A 9 year old kid throws a brick at the window of his teacher who keeps
putting him in detention, and feels some sense of satisfaction, some
release.
You ride The Big One, a roller-coaster, and it blows away all the pettiness
of the day-to-day things. Exhilaration.
So, does education help us to a greater achievement of freedom? I feel sure
it helps us to a greater appreciation of life, becoming better citizens,
more insight into where we are and what we come from.
But as to "achieving more freedom", well, no.
Have you ever seen very young kids playing? Seen the joy on their faces? The
simple delight in just playing, without care and without responsibility?
Well, who is more free? The happy kid, or the enlightened polymath?
Ed
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| User: "Edgar Svendsen" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 04:31:32 PM |
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"Ed Cryer" <ed@somewhere.in.the.UK> wrote in message
news:dpee9n$va2$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
"Freedom is not about doing what you want to do. It is best defined in
education. The better educated you are, the greater freedom you will
achieve".
John Hurt, actor, 65.
Now, I can make a kind of intuitive sense of this; but not much more. It's
the same with other similar things that you read; egs.
"Yet Freedom's banner, though tattered, stream's against the wind"
Byron
"Freedom is a universal toy"
Solzhenitsyn
This "freedom" is a buzz word today; it goes with things like "new",
"improved", "30% extra, free" (it's a pity that "free" has the meaning of
"no charge"; that's really added to the confusion!); and here's my attempt
to make some sense of it.
We're stuck with a subjective/objective understanding of the term.
Objectively it just means "lack of restrictions", "no tariffs", "not in
prison" etc.
But, subjectively...well, I can only appeal to my fellow humans and ask,
do these ring bells?
You've worked and worked and worked, and hoped, and tried...and taken the
exam, and passed. And something rushes through your inner self; some joy,
some sense of the worthwhileness of life.
A 9 year old kid throws a brick at the window of his teacher who keeps
putting him in detention, and feels some sense of satisfaction, some
release.
You ride The Big One, a roller-coaster, and it blows away all the
pettiness of the day-to-day things. Exhilaration.
So, does education help us to a greater achievement of freedom? I feel
sure it helps us to a greater appreciation of life, becoming better
citizens, more insight into where we are and what we come from.
But as to "achieving more freedom", well, no.
Have you ever seen very young kids playing? Seen the joy on their faces?
The simple delight in just playing, without care and without
responsibility?
Well, who is more free? The happy kid, or the enlightened polymath?
One might make the argument that the more you know, the more options you can
see in any given situation. In that sense, education does tend to make you
freer. So the enlightened polymath is both more aware of constraints and
consequences; and also aware of choices that the kid does not even envision.
Ed
Ed
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 10:59:11 PM |
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Being either naive or cynical are both forms of ignorance, the first
being ignorant of what can go wrong, the second what can go right.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 10:59:18 PM |
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Being either naive or cynical are both forms of ignorance, the first
being ignorant of what can go wrong, the second what can go right.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 10:59:19 PM |
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Being either naive or cynical are both forms of ignorance, the first
being ignorant of what can go wrong, the second what can go right.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 10:59:24 PM |
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Being either naive or cynical are both forms of ignorance, the first
being ignorant of what can go wrong, the second what can go right.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "Brian Fletcher" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
05 Jan 2006 05:41:27 AM |
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"Ed Cryer" <ed@somewhere.in.the.UK> wrote in message
news:dpee9n$va2$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
"Freedom is not about doing what you want to do. It is best defined in
education. The better educated you are, the greater freedom you will
achieve".
John Hurt, actor, 65.
Now, I can make a kind of intuitive sense of this; but not much more. It's
the same with other similar things that you read; egs.
"Yet Freedom's banner, though tattered, stream's against the wind"
Byron
"Freedom is a universal toy"
Solzhenitsyn
This "freedom" is a buzz word today; it goes with things like "new",
"improved", "30% extra, free" (it's a pity that "free" has the meaning of
"no charge"; that's really added to the confusion!); and here's my attempt
to make some sense of it.
We're stuck with a subjective/objective understanding of the term.
Objectively it just means "lack of restrictions", "no tariffs", "not in
prison" etc.
But, subjectively...well, I can only appeal to my fellow humans and ask,
do these ring bells?
You've worked and worked and worked, and hoped, and tried...and taken the
exam, and passed. And something rushes through your inner self; some joy,
some sense of the worthwhileness of life.
A 9 year old kid throws a brick at the window of his teacher who keeps
putting him in detention, and feels some sense of satisfaction, some
release.
You ride The Big One, a roller-coaster, and it blows away all the
pettiness of the day-to-day things. Exhilaration.
So, does education help us to a greater achievement of freedom? I feel
sure it helps us to a greater appreciation of life, becoming better
citizens, more insight into where we are and what we come from.
But as to "achieving more freedom", well, no.
Have you ever seen very young kids playing? Seen the joy on their faces?
The simple delight in just playing, without care and without
responsibility?
Well, who is more free? The happy kid, or the enlightened polymath?
Ed
"Be" as little children springs to mind. Children are not caught up with the
past and future, a state that can be re discovered. As in "hu man being".
BOf L
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| User: "ta" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
03 Jan 2006 01:02:37 PM |
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Ed Cryer wrote:
"Freedom is not about doing what you want to do. It is best defined in
education. The better educated you are, the greater freedom you will
achieve".
John Hurt, actor, 65.
Now, I can make a kind of intuitive sense of this; but not much more. It's
the same with other similar things that you read; egs.
"Yet Freedom's banner, though tattered, stream's against the wind"
Byron
"Freedom is a universal toy"
Solzhenitsyn
This "freedom" is a buzz word today; it goes with things like "new",
"improved", "30% extra, free" (it's a pity that "free" has the meaning of
"no charge"; that's really added to the confusion!); and here's my attempt
to make some sense of it.
We're stuck with a subjective/objective understanding of the term.
Objectively it just means "lack of restrictions", "no tariffs", "not in
prison" etc.
But, subjectively...well, I can only appeal to my fellow humans and ask, do
these ring bells?
You've worked and worked and worked, and hoped, and tried...and taken the
exam, and passed. And something rushes through your inner self; some joy,
some sense of the worthwhileness of life.
A 9 year old kid throws a brick at the window of his teacher who keeps
putting him in detention, and feels some sense of satisfaction, some
release.
You ride The Big One, a roller-coaster, and it blows away all the pettiness
of the day-to-day things. Exhilaration.
So, does education help us to a greater achievement of freedom? I feel sure
it helps us to a greater appreciation of life, becoming better citizens,
more insight into where we are and what we come from.
But as to "achieving more freedom", well, no.
Have you ever seen very young kids playing? Seen the joy on their faces? The
simple delight in just playing, without care and without responsibility?
Well, who is more free? The happy kid, or the enlightened polymath?
Ed
"The Schoolboy
From Songs of Experience
William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
But to go to school in a summer morn, -
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay, -
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?"
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/schoolboy.html
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| User: "Ed Cryer" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
03 Jan 2006 03:17:25 PM |
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"ta" <padlrnc@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:1136314957.490633.235180@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
"The Schoolboy
From Songs of Experience
William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
But to go to school in a summer morn, -
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay, -
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?"
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/schoolboy.html
Yes, I quite like that.
How about this from William Wordsworth?
V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
But, IMHopinion, the best poem in the English language about lost innocence
and childhood, is Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill, the Welsh farm where he grew up.
http://www.bigeye.com/fernhill.htm
Ed
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| User: "ta" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
03 Jan 2006 09:51:44 PM |
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Ed Cryer wrote:
"ta" <padlrnc@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:1136314957.490633.235180@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
"The Schoolboy
From Songs of Experience
William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!
But to go to school in a summer morn, -
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!
O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay, -
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?"
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/schoolboy.html
Yes, I quite like that.
How about this from William Wordsworth?
V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Excellent. And written by one of alt.philosophy's own . . . oh wait,
that's Wordsmith. ;-)
But, IMHopinion, the best poem in the English language about lost innocence
and childhood, is Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill, the Welsh farm where he grew up.
http://www.bigeye.com/fernhill.htm
Again, excellent.
Ed
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 07:01:15 AM |
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We need to make a distinction between kids playing and the two forms of
government: democratic freedom and despotism.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "Bret Cahill" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
04 Jan 2006 07:51:27 AM |
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Being free means being able to come up with new ideas. You don't have
to be a happy kid to be free.
Several of us on alt.inventors were recently pushing toy inventing to
encourage creativity. You have a lot more freedom with games and toys
because you decide the objectives, design points, etc. Self conscious
types don't have to worry about being "flamed" for a "bad" idea.
After all, it's just a toy.
Later, after you get a zillion ideas, some might have "serious"
applications.
The sustainable energy problem might not be solved with fusion power,
solar, etc. replacing coal and oil on a BTU basis but if enough
alternatives exist it could be possible for most to live a good life.
Someone on sci.energy suggested a Segway type of gyro stabilized
unicycle for serious high speed energy efficient commuting.
I didn't take it too seriously so I started exploiting gyro control to
the max just to be funny. You could pogo stick over offending
vehicles, execute whimsical flips while switching lanes . . .
I was really enjoying myself until I thought, something like that is
not only possible, it might even be safe and cost effective.
It could actually happen.
Bret Cahill
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| User: "AE" |
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| Title: Re: Freedom and Education |
03 Jan 2006 12:36:06 PM |
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The freedom of the kid is possible only because there are parents taking
care for them.
Being an adult means to take care oneself, so we won't ever get back the
amount of freedom we had as kids.
Nevertheless our education should help us to achieve as much freedom as
possible in the world of adults and to use this freedom to live the way
we want.
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