Why We Cannot Win

And I think you are confusing anarchy with chaos.

And I think you are manipulating the concept of the "state of nature". To start with, you quoted Hobbes and Locke, yet I don't know why, you avoided Rousseau. I'm not saying you are being Evil Manipulator, but may I remind you your concept of state of nature is not precise. State of nature is a hypothetical state before social organization, it is the state of man seen as a non-social creature, something that is not defended by everyone. For example, I agree with Aristotle, unlike Hobbes o Rousseau, I believe man is social, thus this hypothetical state is not possible...unless in the hypothesis man is antisocial/asocial (Hobbes believes in anti-social, Rousseau in asocial).

Another mistake you make is to assume in natural state a man could freely trespass property. In fact, property is directly incompatible with state of nature. I should say more: In "Speech on the fiundamentation and origin of inequality between men" (found on other less pedantic titles), by Rousseau, he said private property was the responsable for the end of such state.

And about USA being the land of the free, I differ. And my arguments are found...

Here, and...here, and...here, and...here. Here too.


So yeah, there you have a bunch of reasons why USA is not a free country. No, I am not going to explain my opinion and arguments because it would take too long, and it would be a long pedantic post people would get bored of reading. But you can get only one of those if you are interested, you will see where things are failing, and it goes far deeper than any internet post.

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Originally Posted by Optium

The author is facing possible charges which could lead to up to 20
years in prison. Hope nobody is silly enough to even think about
convicting him.

.opt

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Charges? I have no idea where your from opt but i live in america and the government cant in censor me.

*Note
I have been kicked out of the mall for cursing. I was chillin with my freinds talking and stuff. and some soccer mom comes over and tells me to watch my mouth. then i told her to shut the f up, f off and said alot even when it didnt make any sense in the sentence. Then a security guard told me to leave and i did cause i didnt want to get in anymore trouble because i knew the security guard was going to try to make me leave and then i was going to hafto crack him one in the mouth even though i was less than half his size. But that dodent really matter to me.

Shadow Nexus, that quote came fom another thread on here. For the rest of us, if you read farther in the thread it explains how people in the MILITARY have rights taken away to protect yours. It's explained and agreed upon very clearly that a normal civiliian could have written that and not a thing could be done about it, but since he was in the military, he broke military regulation. You can't use that as an example in any normal cause. It's useless.

an·ar·chy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nr-k)
n. pl. an·ar·chies
1. Absence of any form of political authority.

au·thor·i·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-thôr-t, -thr-, ô-thôr-, ô-thr-)
n. pl. au·thor·i·ties

1. a. The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.


Now let's see... Rousseau is typically representative of the continental European vision of society, and fairly far from the way the USA conceives its government for example. But since you are interested in him, I'll detail some. In Rousseau's vision, the important moment is when people decide to give up their freedom (as in free to do whatever) to form the "social contract", in which they give power to a body (a government) to make laws and define freedoms. The social contract is "finding a form of association that defends and protects from all the common force the person and the goods of all associates, and by which everyone, uniting with everyone yet obeying only to himself, stays as free as he was before" But as Rousseau puts it soon after, there is a huge distinction between freedom and freedom: men give up their "natural freedom" (bound only by force) to acquire a "civil freedom" (bound by the general will). Same distinction with property: possession is based on force, property is based on a positive title. (Which means that property comes from the "civil state", not the other way around)

I'll also add that Rousseau's view isn't defended by everyone either. In particular later French philosophers (ex: Tocqueville) criticized Rousseau's ideas, not for themselves, but for some of the risks coming from it (like giving up freedom for egality). In either case (Rousseau, Locke/Hobbes), you go from a state where you could do whatever you want to one where you are bound by what the society agreed on.

Now the books you mention...
All consuming images: "Required reading for anyone interested in how fashion, style and the power of image have developed over the decades." (from the book's description). Errr, yes? Mind developping why it shows the USA isn't the "land of the free"?
Weber: "Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West." Same remark as above. That said, Weber did write that "the State has the monopoly of legal force", but that's for Europe (because in the USA, the people have that power too).
Marcuse: I tired to find more about him, and found out he lived in the USA, and was influenced by Marx' writings. And from what I read about him through a review of O'Neil's article based on these ideas, it's highly contestable.
Marx: I find his economics work interesting from a purely hypothetical point of view, but once you look at the reality of the nature of people, it doesn't work. And his own view of people is very limited too. Some situations today might look similar, but that's not the same. Plus, Marx predicted that capitalism would fall apart; I'm still waiting.
Freud: haven't read it, but from the reviews, while it offers an analysis of the Western civilisation, I haven't seen mentioned the lack of freedom in the USA (/Western world). Same, if you could elaborate, that would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Carnage

I have been kicked out of the mall for cursing. I was chillin with my freinds talking and stuff. and some soccer mom comes over and tells me to watch my mouth. then i told her to shut the f up, f off and said alot even when it didnt make any sense in the sentence. Then a security guard told me to leave and i did cause i didnt want to get in anymore trouble because i knew the security guard was going to try to make me leave and then i was going to hafto crack him one in the mouth even though i was less than half his size. But that dodent really matter to me.

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Malls are generally private property. When you enter, you follow whatever rule the owner chooses (such as acting civilized), and if you break them, the owner can tell you to go break them outside, and the security guard enforce it.

cha·os
noun
1.disorder:a state of complete disorder and confusion

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But as Rousseau puts it soon after, there is a huge distinction between freedom and freedom: men give up their "natural freedom" (bound only by force) to acquire a "civil freedom" (bound by the general will). Same distinction with property: possession is based on force, property is based on a positive title. (Which means that property comes from the "civil state", not the other way around)

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No, they don't give up their natural freedom, they loose it. And they don't do it to adquire civil freedom, they just attempt to adquire civil freedom as a substitute from the original natural state wich they can never return to.

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I'll also add that Rousseau's view isn't defended by everyone either.

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NO, REALLY??? :p

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All consuming images: "Required reading for anyone interested in how fashion, style and the power of image have developed over the decades." (from the book's description). Errr, yes? Mind developping why it shows the USA isn't the "land of the free"?

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Err...didn't you ever heard the "don't judge the book for it's cover"? This one on later chapters develops the concept of consumerist society following the panoptical order, or in other words, makes an argument of modern capitalism being a prision of the mind. And it's a good one, but it took the writer 280 pages to develop, so it's hard to summarise it here.

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Weber: "Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day a powerful and fascinating read. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West." Same remark as above. That said, Weber did write that "the State has the monopoly of legal force", but that's for Europe (because in the USA, the people have that power too)

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Weber was the first one to use the famous definition of modern capitalism as an "iron cage". It's complicated to explain, but again, he makes some very good points on the critical ideas to capitalism. Although this man is not someone I agree with much, he does a great denounce on modern society.

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Marcuse: I tired to find more about him, and found out he lived in the USA, and was influenced by Marx' writings. And from what I read about him through a review of O'Neil's article based on these ideas, it's highly contestable.

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He is contestable. Every thinker is.

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Marx: I find his economics work interesting from a purely hypothetical point of view, but once you look at the reality of the nature of people, it doesn't work. And his own view of people is very limited too. Some situations today might look similar, but that's not the same. Plus, Marx predicted that capitalism would fall apart; I'm still waiting.

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Mmm...I gave you the link to the philosophical manuscripts, not to The Capital. Those manuscripts are from his first times, where he was more concentrated on denounce than on the whole historic theory.

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Freud: haven't read it, but from the reviews, while it offers an analysis of the Western civilisation, I haven't seen mentioned the lack of freedom in the USA (/Western world).

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Oh, he does, he refers to the repression of the Id, but defends it in a good way. It's not that in fact he attacks western culture that much (well, he does...) but it's the fact that his conclusion easily leads to the follow up by Marcuse in "Eros and Civilization".


But since it's very boring to get me going on in pedantic style on the books, let's make something happier. You know the Marxist theory, right? I don't mean his economic stuff, wich I find terribly boring, I mean his critique to capitalism...
Now the Million Dollar Question:

Is that critique still relevant today?