The Social Contract, reading discussion

Dagny April 28, 2019 at 14:29 1775 views 1 comments

Suggested by the forum member Ron, I picked up The Social Contract

I like it is so far, it is easy to read, the some tenets are interesting:

The idea that children sacrifice their freedom to their parents because they need them for protection / basically to survive, BUT when they grow up, they no longer need them
He said that if you were born in slavery, you do not want to be free, since bondage is something so natural to you that you do not view it as being oppressed. We have historical proof of that, only 150,000 slaves joined the rebellion of Spartacus, out of (3 million I think?) total slaves in Rome - most of the slaves decided to stay where they are. And in any case in history where there was a slave rebellion not as many slaves joined as predicted
None of us are free? I think he means if you live in a society, you have to sacrifice your freedom (not sure tho)

Comments (1)

whollyrolling April 28, 2019 at 15:06 #283048 0 likes

Slavery and servitude were part of life for thousands of years, since the dawn of civilization, and dying to escape it was certainly unappealing to most people. Spartacus marched those men as if they were pigs to a slaughter, which is drastically different from simply being given a choice between slavery and freedom. Also, not all slaves would have been as fit to fight or as courageous or suicidal, and many would have been content, or at least complacent as you mentioned. In the end, it was free men who died by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery.

We aren't free in many ways, but I think much of history has demonstrated that a willingness toward servitude is where most people feel safe. An exercise of willingness under social pressure is mistaken for freedom. Freedom is also an illusion of equality of opportunity, which is relatively fair.

I don't think freedom is possible, but if it was, I don't think anyone would want to see how it compares to willing servitude in hindsight.