Horse 2942 - Freedumb For What?

Before I begin this proper, I need to define my terms. We can take it as a truth that there are people with varying degrees of intelligence, just as there are people with varying degrees of spatial awareness or with differing musical or emotional ability, just as there are people of varying degrees of strength. I absolutely do not want to frame this as having anything to do with the innate physical capacities of people; nor do I wish to make any kind of value judgement on this same subject.

The term which I will repeatedly use, is the concept of 'stupidity'. That is, decisions taken by an apparently rational actor with agency, who is capable of selecting something based upon the available information to them and then deliberately arriving at horrible choices. The reason why I make that distinction is that a person of lesser intelligence is still capable of being kind, helpful, rational and noble. The stupid person is also capable of being kind, helpful, rational and noble and then chooses not to be.

I think that there is a distinction in category between someone who is misinformed but well meaning and someone who is ill-informed and ill-meaning. The former can be convinced of what is true and even corrected through sound reasoning. The latter, convinced of their own reasoning, can not be convinced of the truth or corrected through sound reasoning. They have rejected reality and substituted their own and until they've have paid for their personal truth that they have purchased with lies, they are like castaways who are alone under stormy skies. Or rather, not alone, but often in community with others who also have purchased that same unreal reality.

One of the counterfeit pieces of currency which is flashed around by the showmen who want to flog a miracle snake oil, is the word "freedom". Of itself, freedom is a useful concept because it says that an individual is free to do what they wish. Unfortunately, if freedom is possessed by a stupid person who is unencumbered by the thought process, then the results are equally as stupid. One of the base assumptions in economics is that the actors in the economy are held to be rational; I have serious doubts about this most of the time. Most people are about as rational as the inverse distance away from their last meal. Judges for instance, are more likely to hand down guilty verdicts in the half hour before lunch than the half hour after it. Freedom, in my not very well paid opinion, should be tempered with the sensible questions of: freedom to do what? freedom for what? etc.

I would like to say that people in the 21st Century who have access to practically the entire world of knowledge in the palm of their hand, are somehow better at discerning that which is true, proper, just, kind and/or rational but sadly, that is not the case. It very much appears that people in the 21st Century can be just as easily led down stupid highways than in previous centuries. I find it more than a little ironic that the Englightment was fuelled by coffee and came after the gin craze, if we want to call what we are living through now the "Unenlightenment", it is also in part fuelled by caffeine. Monster Energy drink gives people the energy to do dumb things faster and turn them into monsters. Red Bull gives people wings and they can fly right into the side of a building. Freedom? Freedom to do what? Freedom for what?

As usual, because the centre of the universe is 19mm behind the corneas of the individual who makes the observation, that means that the central driver for freedom exercised, is selfishness. Selfishness might result in a self-organising system but all it guarantees is that whoever can apply the most brute force, either of will or of physical violence, ends up winning. If that's the end point, then that in reality is only 'freedom' for a select few and deep unpleasantness for the powerless, the vulnerable, the weak, the kind, the generous, the noble and the quiet. 

One of the central themes of the rolling series of anti-vax protests in Melbourne is the claim of a glib notion of "freedom". Presumably these people want the freedom to do and go as they please with no regard for the welfare of anybody else and the fact that they haven't been allowed to do exactly that, in the middle of a global pandemic where people have been dying, makes them sad. Avoiding sadness isn't exactly the highest and noblest driver of what is good or best for either one's self, or others, or others in Commonwealth. During the last great pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1918-20, newspapers like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Argus, The Truth, The Sun etc, ram adverts for cocaine and heroin; which were still legal for the general public. I am sure that those things also reduced immediate sadness but would do absolutely nothing to address the influenza problem. Avoiding sadness without addressing underlying problems as a matter of policy, is stupidity in action.

I guess that I understand that sadness of an immediate loss of circumstance is unpleasant but being blown about on the wind and waves of emotion, is hardly a sensible method of determining policy. Especially in Melbourne, there have been political rallies which have on occasion demanded the murder of the Premier of Victoria and this has been promoted, nay even defended by sections of the media, as the people "taking back control" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and people marching for vague notions of freedom and liberty. It must be said that I am probably more well read in political philosophy than your average freedom rally attendee and while I agree with the notion that there are places and appropriate times for speech and action, I absolutely refuse to concede the point that any freedom and/or liberty either is or even should be absolute. 

If anything, the actions of the protesters are pushing me towards the notion that individual liberty and freedom when pursued as a directionless idol, are not only counterproductive to the notion of liberty itself but actively making me feel sad and angry at them. Based upon the logic being employed by the protesters (or the complete lack thereof), then my feelings are sufficiently good enough to decree that all of them should be held under house arrest. 'Ahah' you will say, that's stupid. 'Ahah' I will agree, congratulations for arriving at the same conclusion that I came to. Facts do not care about feelings and policy which is only designed to make people feel good is stupidity in action.

In general the assumption at law is that people are free to do whatever they like as long as it doesn't impinge on the liberty of someone else. This assumption must stem from the position that people are made of crystal spheres and that as long as the crystal spheres never touch each other, then all is right with the world. I think that this is a stupid assumption. The kosmos is made of loads of interconnected systems; most of which are designed to operate as seamlessly and as silently as possible. If you can not tell how something arrived at a position but that thing is sufficiently complex enough, then the underlying systems which have brought it there are sufficiently well enough designed. If you demand 'freedom' but have no intention other than to break complex systems, with no idea or design of what you are going to replace them with, then this is also stupidity in action.

What then is the United Australia Party demanding with its glib yell for 'freedom'? To be honest I have no idea. They haven't told us what they want it for. Freedom to do what? Freedom for what? I too can yell 'freedom freedom freedom' into the void but it is meaningless unless it is directed at some purpose. The United Australia Party with their series of adverts both in the wild and radio, tv and print, makes no claim about what they want freedom for, or what to do with it when they've got it, or what they want freedom from. I can't even work through the chain of events that would happen if they were to get and enact whatever their notion of 'freedom' is. Without articulating anything sensible, this is just one step above duckspeak. woohoo.