In the first, you're "free" to climb the cliff however much equipment you have. If you feel safer you may feel more able to allow *yourself* to climb the cliff, but society exerts no pressure on you one way or the other. Of course, it might, in the form of a sign forbidding anyone to climb without adequate equipment...in which case anyone who wanted to climb it bareback, as it were, would feel their freedom infringed upon to ensure their safety. (The sign also infringes *your* freedom to climb without equipment, but since you wouldn't anyway, you don't notice.)
In the second example, your safety is bought at the cost of the predators' freedom, and a good thing too. The net freedom in the system has to go down so that your safety can go up. Again, you *feel* freer, but society in this case is not making you any more free than you were before; rather it's making the predators less free to ensure your safety. (Also, it's making *you* less free to be a predator, but since you wouldn't anyway, you don't notice.)
I am very much afraid of being hurt by other people's freedom. This is why libertarianism and anarchism bother me so much, and why I see no paradox, though I'm sure one was intended, in Leslie Fish's immortal line
"And then they hollered for the law...as liberals always do."
But I am able, probably thanks to years of white male privilege, to step back and see myself as being on that axis, and know that when I feel freer because I'm safer (as I said in my post about feeling free not to have to carry a gun) it's not that my freedom is increased, it's that the freedom of others is diminished.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 11:26 pm (UTC)In the first, you're "free" to climb the cliff however much equipment you have. If you feel safer you may feel more able to allow *yourself* to climb the cliff, but society exerts no pressure on you one way or the other. Of course, it might, in the form of a sign forbidding anyone to climb without adequate equipment...in which case anyone who wanted to climb it bareback, as it were, would feel their freedom infringed upon to ensure their safety. (The sign also infringes *your* freedom to climb without equipment, but since you wouldn't anyway, you don't notice.)
In the second example, your safety is bought at the cost of the predators' freedom, and a good thing too. The net freedom in the system has to go down so that your safety can go up. Again, you *feel* freer, but society in this case is not making you any more free than you were before; rather it's making the predators less free to ensure your safety. (Also, it's making *you* less free to be a predator, but since you wouldn't anyway, you don't notice.)
I am very much afraid of being hurt by other people's freedom. This is why libertarianism and anarchism bother me so much, and why I see no paradox, though I'm sure one was intended, in Leslie Fish's immortal line
"And then they hollered for the law...as liberals always do."
But I am able, probably thanks to years of white male privilege, to step back and see myself as being on that axis, and know that when I feel freer because I'm safer (as I said in my post about feeling free not to have to carry a gun) it's not that my freedom is increased, it's that the freedom of others is diminished.
Does that make sense?