[MD] Mill: Quality philosopher

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Mike]
Free individuals - working in parallel, each one a centre of improvement or 
conduit for DQ - speed up the process. But just as societies stagnate by 
shutting the door to DQ (see the relevant passages in Pirsig and Mill), so 
do individuals who become 'set in their ways'.

[Arlo]
First, good post. Thanks. Second, I've always liked Mill, despite hearing 
in my head "John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of 
shandy was particularly ill" whenever his name is mentioned. And, despite 
what the Jesters would proclaim, liberty is as dear to me as anyone else on 
this list. But, I get bogged down (somewhat) on formulating what it means 
to "be free".

For example, were the Indians "free individuals"? From all accounts I read, 
they were. They could come and go as they please. They could swim in any 
lake, eat of any plant, wander as their mood directed. In many nations they 
had a voice, could address the tribe, could marry as they desired, etc. 
Being unencumbered by "stuff" (as George Carlin might put it), I find it 
hard to demonstrate just exactly how *I* am "more free" than they were. 
Granted, I have more toys. And the technology has enabled greater travel 
distances in shorter time. But are these being "more free"?

I've long fallen back on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's notion of "Flow" as a 
high quality definition of freedom, that is as unencumbered by cultural 
baggage as I've seen. As I understand it, Flow is simply the ability to do 
whatever it is that is of high value to you, with the understanding that 
things "of high value" vary from culture to culture. Thus, while I value 
"motorcycling", and use my ability to do so as a marker of my "freedom", 
someone in another culture may value "dancing", and mark their freedom as 
such. This is only rhetorical, since I know I am being redundant, but 
basing cross-cultural comparisons of freedom on "motorcycling" is unfair. 
Sure, I can motorcycle while the Indian (back then) could not. But the more 
important question is this...

Do I have more or less "Flow" ability, and more or less "Flow" time, than 
the Indian? This is, to me, how one must address the question of "freedom".

I say this mostly because "property ownership" has become a strong cultural 
marker of "freedom" in the West. But, I challenge the notion that this is 
not only not pan-cultural, but endemic of "freedom" overall. The Indian, 
remember, had no "property", and yet had (as best I can tell) every bit as 
much ability to "Flow" as I have. Now, those living under Stalinist rule 
had little ability to "Flow". That is, there WERE cultural values they 
wanted to pursue, but were restricted.

You see what I'm saying? Freedom is not about doing what we "in the West" 
value, such as owning property, riding motorcycles and painting 
watercolors. Freedom is simply being able to do what you, through your 
linguaculture, have learned to value. As long as we agree on this, I find 
no problem in anything you've said. However, when one imposes, as Mill 
occasionally does, Western culturally valued activity on what it means to 
be "free" for anyone, any where, then I start to see things more and more 
problematically.

Sorry for being longwinded...

Arlo