License or Liberty?
An ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction; ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and inexperience of men lacking all political, economic, or civil knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. Like a stout blind man who, instigated by the feeling of his strength, walks with the security of the most discerning man, and striking in all the pitfalls can not rectify his steps.
Simón Bolívar, The Angostura Address
Reality and illusion, as well as license and liberty/freedom, vengeance/revenge and justice, are all opposite, all different things, and should never be confused. Although opposites are often touched, and the line between them is often diffuse, not so, things that at first glance may seem similar, are really the same.
We must avoid with great care to confuse such pairs, because in such error the degradation always hides. The belief that the license is or can be equivalent to liberty, is accompanied at all times by his faithful friend, the servitude, as well as the belief that vengeance is just augurs darkness.
We must clarify then the schismatic difference between such concepts, which are all times irreconcilable.
On the one hand, liberty and license, with all their similarities, are irremediably contrary. He who has liberty decides, guided by his will, whether to act or not, and how to do it, on the contrary, who has a license acts or not, based on the will of another, and does so as the latter allows.
Can we say that there is liberty if you need the permission of another to act in this or that way, or on the contrary, we will say that liberty derives precisely from not needing anyone's permission?
Here we already intuit the error, if it is necessary for us to have license to do this or that thing, then necessarily we lack liberty, and on the contrary, we have master.
Many times people confuse all kinds of licenses, and mistakenly they attribute the rank of "freedom" to a permit, such are the cases when we speak of economic freedom, freedom of speech, press, and so on, things that are not truly freedoms, that freedom there is only one, nobody is nor can be doubly free.
If we have free market nothing else, and we do not possess any of the other "freedoms", can we say then that we are free, or will we say that in spite of not being free we have certain permits in what is relative to the economy?
Neither freedom nor liberty can be divided, fellows, let us not be deceived. If we can do some things, and others do not, based on the will of another, we don't have "freedoms" or "liberties", we have licenses.
Such is the degree of confusion that exists between license and liberty, that it is even possible to listen to some "ask" or "demand" liberty, which is an absurdity.
Asking for liberty to another is like a young man who asks for more independence from his parents, instead of becoming independent by himself. Would not it be absurd that the young man depended on his parents to be independent?
In the same way it is absurd for a man to depend on others giving him liberty. Those who ask for liberty, ask their masters, and what they seek are permits, never liberty.
A free people is not the one that the government allows them to do many things, a free people is the one that, in any case, allows the government to govern, let's see that there is a big difference there where sovereignty resides. No matter how many permits you have, there will never be true freedom in a dynamic where power does not reside in people.
The license, although permissive, is the cousin of slavery and enemy of liberty, because it¿s necessary not to have liberty to be able to possess the license.
And moving from one concept to another, let us notice that Bolivar has not chosen his words in vain, and gives us another magnificent example of similar opposites, such as vengeance and justice.
In the same way that the license, although it gives airs of freedom, can only exist in slavery; vengeance, although it seems an emanation of justice, can only have life in injustice.
Take vengenace for justice is to attribute divinity to the judgments made by men, is to believe that every man has in his hands the ability to decide over nature and society what is right for all, is to confuse the subjective with the objective.
Not even the most just of men can or should choose the punishment of those who, it is worth remembering, he believes that they have offended him. Imagine then each man with his own system of justice that is responsible for punishing anyone who in his eyes offends him. The most despotic chaos can't be more than the only result.
What has not been precisely the presence of vengeance and the absence of justice the guarantor of most wars? What many have not started because a country believes itself smart enough to do justice over others? What have not started because a country believes that its judgments are absolute and only his opinion matters?
An example that Bolívar does not mention, but it is worth mentioning, is that of flexibility and weakness, because many also confuse both. Flexibility, although it may seem weakness, is only typical of strengthness.
Weak ones who pretend to be strong, and who therefore are incapable of being flexible, are those who seek revenge on anyone who offends them. Every situation, as terrible as it may seem and delicate it may be, always has two sides, and each time one of them believes that he can impart justice for both, there will be chaos and conflict, and therefore, the result will be the opposite.
Let us not be deceived then, and carefully observe the concepts we use, justice can never fit into a man, no matter how good he is, as liberty can never be given.
Let's remember again the example of the stout blind man, because that is us, that with a perfect vision we want to walk safely ignoring the invisible.
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I've been away for a while. I'm glad to see that you are still posting quality articles.
Where have you been all this time? It was such a pleasant surprise to see you after a long time :-)
Thanks for saying that. I've just been busy with other projects and life in general. And with the crypto bear market I haven't been following things too closely. Time really can fly by.
I did pay attention to the EOS mainnet launch and voted for block producers. I think we are now moving into a phase where only projects with an actual product and/or use case are going to survive and thrive.
I'm excited to see what the blockchain world continues to create in the realm of social media. The recent censorship actions of the corporate giants really shows how important it is to have decentralized social media.
I think @steemhunt is leading the way when it comes to SMTs and my account already have over 27K HUNT tokens which I think would be wirth at least 10 cents each. I'm impressed by their developments. STEEM will go through a slow and steady takeover of legacy social media. Instead of a total collapse I'm seeing a slow ruin for everything except Tencent (WeChat) and to a lesser extent FB. Rest of the social media companies aren't really making much money or just loosing money.
I also have high hopes for @steemmonsters I've been collecting cards these last few days. The two most under the radar behemoths in crypto space actually happen to be Hashgraph and Tau (http://www.idni.org) Each of these two projects are far bigger deal than EOS and EOS is a really big deal.
I also think STEEM is an easy 100 bagger.
Thanks!.. for the compliment and the support. I still try to improve, to which you have been very helpful.
Regards!
Your articles always have the great effect on me that I dive deeper into the topic. Which I appreciate a lot. Here are my thoughts and associations to what you wrote:
I like your example of a young man who demands independence from his parents very much. It shows most strongly what the dependence is based on. The parent-child relationship shows well how far a person's self-responsibility has come, whether he is free or bound. In my opinion, one is only free if one takes responsibility for one's omissions and actions. In this respect, everyone needs a strong mental framework on which he can rely and which he can maintain through education and upbringing and which he is receptive to. I can only be free if I make myself independent of the recognition, praise and criticism of other people, but without rejecting criticism or acknowledgement. I am also free when I accept that I am dependent on other people who enable me to act in the world by providing me with what I need to live.
I am not free when I refuse that people have helped me to be successful and do not want to see their support.
It all depends on how I look at a license. When it comes to someone else's intellectual property (e.g. a doctoral thesis, a piece of music or an interview), I act ethically correct because I do not use someone else's property for my own purposes without asking. As a licensor, I should feel responsible for the content of my work and what it may cause in people and want to take care of the context in which my work is used. For example, if I don't care that parts of my work are taken out of context and used for unethical purposes, and I agree because I want to make money out of my license, I don't live up to my responsibility.
One can assume that one's own work and the form of my communication style will always please and offend somebody. Perhaps I can only feel real freedom if I experience, for example, that the majority of my work offends people, even though I have proceeded according to the strictest standards of ethical principles, and I still stand by what I have said. I believe that many people have died or made great sacrifices for remaining true to this form of themselves (inner freedom). Like Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Ghandi. Or spiritual leaders like Jesus and Buddha.
In truth, there is no absolute giver and no absolute taker. We all always negotiate with each other in such a way that we both give and take. We temporarily restrict the freedom of another, and at another time we leave the other completely free. Conversely, they do the same with us. Only in the case of uncertainty do we invoke a written law, a right that we believe someone else has violated. Basically, it would be enough to appoint a referee, a moderator, who can mediate before, for example, a court is tried. The rule of law should not be called upon at every opportunity, but only in rare cases, if you ask me.
On an individual level, I find it all quite easy to handle and most people do indeed behave reasonably, even if they often talk nonsense.
I find it problematic where I do not even know that there is a danger to body and soul before the introduction of a product or a project, for example when large corporations finance research that does not sufficiently take into account the dignity and ethical sensibilities of people and where, before any means or products are implemented, a long period of ethical debate on a topic on a very broad level should take place. This debate should be open and accessible through many channels, such as genetic research (with embryos and intervention in the human genome, etc.) or organ donation.
We depend on role models who do their jobs and have strong ethics.
I think this sums up pretty well what freedom is essentially about. Responsibility is the key to freedom, if you don't have responsibility, you don't have freedom. If someone is responsible for your actions, then your actions depend on someone else being responsible for them, and therefore, don't depend solely on you, ergo, you are not free to do that action, because you need the permission of another.
And omissions are also important, because in some way, omissions are actions. When we don't do anything, when we omit doing something, we are also deciding not to do anything, and that decision is an action, therefore, when we decide not to do anything, we must also take responsibility for not doing anything, and in the same way, if we don't do anything, and someone takes responsibility for the results propitiated because we did not do anything, then we lack freedom, because we depend on someone else being responsible for our omission, that is, we depend on someone else allowing us, by taking responsibility for our results, to do nothing.
I don't know if you understand what I mean.
I think that dependence and freedom can only go hand in hand while dependence is mutual, otherwise, and if one of the two depends absolutely on the other without the latter being dependent on the first, one party will be left without responsibility for their acts, as well as without freedom to act in their own way.
You are only free insofar as you contribute in the same way in how you are contributed, or in other words, you are free to the extent that you can cover your needs for yourself. But as you yourself said… "there is no absolute giver and no absolute taker. We all always negotiate with each other in such a way that we both give and take. We temporarily restrict the freedom of another, and at another time we leave the other completely free. Conversely, they do the same with us."
For this reason no one is absolutely free, in the extreme that a human can be, while living in a society. There is always a degree of freedom that we are willing to give up.
About the license, to which I specifically referred with a license, is when we have "freedom" given by another, that is, when someone lets us do something. This of course is not "freedom", because if we really had freedom, we did not need the permission of another, therefore, it's a license, it's a permit, a free pass to do this or that, but it is not true freedom, because it does not depend on your decision, but on the decision of other.
I'm glad that my articles are to your liking, and I'm sorry for the late response, greetings! :)
Thank you for taking care of my comment. No problem, when you answer late.
I understand. For example, if I am absent from the vote of the parent representatives in my son's class (my decision not to go, therefore doing nothing for or against), then I do not cast my vote and must therefore be satisfied that others have had a say for me. Utilizing my participation potential is an action, just as not utilizing it is an action (omitted decision).
This is truly difficult to investigate. The question is: where does the dependence lie and what kind of dependence do we talk about? Can you give an example?
Regarding "license": When I have the freedom to ignore a license because I just can afford not to use something which the license is about, I still have a certain amount of freedom, hence, can pick alternatives. Do you have something in mind which lets me be unfree? Like the Monsanto strategy, for example? As I have understood it, the farmers don't have to buy seeds from them but once they decide doing so, they depend on purchasing the seeds as they were modified not to reproduce themselves. So it's not quite a fitting example.
I agree with the rest. Nobody indeed is a hundred percent free.
The will to become hundred percent free is the problem a lot of the times, I guess.
One must develop some negotiation skills in order to stretch freedom to the most possible amount.
... But hey, now I can see where the unfreedom takes place. It's, when the party with which I actually would like to negotiate is out of my reach! Either through willful ignorance or through the sheer size of an organization... there I need representatives to work for "me". ... Here comes trust into play.... what a difficult topic that is ;-)
Sincere greetings to you!
Exactly.
Dependency reduces freedom, and I am speaking in the strictest sense of the word "dependence", since if you depend on something or someone to do this or that action, then you also depend on that something or someone allows you to do such a thing.
To depend is to need another, and if you need another to do something, you can not do that without the other, therefore, it does not depend solely on you, and therefore, again, you are not free to do that, since you need the approval of another.
When there is mutual dependence, both need mutual approval, therefore, both cooperate. When one party depends on the other, it needs to win the favor of the one on which it depends.
Although there is always a margin, even a very slight one, of freedom, in the same way that one cannot be totally free, freedom cannot either, it is impossible, be totally absent.
You're right, but that's an apparent freedom, it's an illusion of freedom, because if to do something I need someone's permission first (license), then I'm not free to do that, I have no free way to choose to do that when I want it, much less, but on the contrary, I can only do it when they (the authority) allow me, and after they let me, I'm free to do it or not, but only after they let me.
I would say that if you must negotiate with another to stretch the freedom, then it is not freedom, but it's license, because you need the permission of another, which you get through negotiation.
Both someone who has freedom and someone who has a license can do what they want to do, the difference is that the one who has freedom acts on the basis of his will, since he does not need anyone's permission, and the one who has a license acts on the basis of the will of another, since he needs precisely the permission of another to do what he wants.
The one who has a license is only "free" after they give him the license, but before, and if they don't give it, it's not free, therefore, the license is not true freedom.
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Well said. Excellent stuff as usual.
Thanks!