"Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set." Adlai Stevenson "Putting First Things First"
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Winston Smith in 1984
"Think how far Iraq has come from the days of torture chambers and mass graves, and the brutal reign of a barbaric tyrant." Bush in Iowa, 1 Nov. 2004
"Farmers’ sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light." Thoreau "The Succession of Forest Trees"
"I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." More Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
2 comments:
These are some thoughtful quotes. To consider what freedom is when the idea is so homogenized and self-conscious seems to be one reason our culture lacks the motivation to act as individuals. The irony of Bush's quote contrasted with Thoreau's insight on why perhaps we are all just entertained by the insanity was a touch of brilliance.
Thanks BC. I think the one that disturbs me most these days is Winston Smith's. That is, there was a time when I thought that people loved the juggler's party trick too much, but now I fear we are losing the freedom to say two plus two make four. It begins to appear that two plus two make however many Diebold tells us they make.
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