Liberty

From Sustain

The propaganda peddled to promote the superiority of our Anglo-American form of society focuses upon the primacy of individual freedom.

Liberty has indeed become the foundation of our political and economic system. Unfortunately, our modern interpretation of liberty is entirely incompatible with a sustainable world.

We need to perfect the means of our interdependence, not continually prioritise our imagined independence. We need to unite behind the collected wisdom of all, not pretend that every adult can alone determine sustainable behaviour.

Most contemporary causes are focused upon the ongoing erosion of personal rights and privacy in the name of the war on terror. I sympathise with many of these concerns, but it is important to discern between the many themes bundled up in the broadly trumpeted concept of liberty. The real threat of tyranny, long fought against, needs to be separated from:

a) intervention in consumption, mandatory for our society's survival; and

b) reform of the sham that masquerades as individual political influence.

The rich history of political thought that installed liberty in its prime position has many commendable elements to be cherished and nurtured. The hollow form of negative liberty that has become dominant has de-emphasised most of these admirable traits, leaving only the core doctrine of ‘every man for himself’. The woes that weigh down the world are the inevitable outcome.

Here is the full Liberty detail.

The next chapter challenges this core basis of our prevalent mode of society: Monkey Theory