[MD] Mill: Quality philosopher

[ian glendinning]

Mike, Arlo,

I hadn't really been concentrating on the earlier Freedom and Property
threads (only so many hours in the day), and I hadn't previuously
noticed the parallel you're making between Freedom (in the wider
social sense as opposed to the mental / causal free-will sense) and
the elbow room for DQ. I hadn't seen Mill's "On Liberty" as being the
specific subject that had pricked my Pirsigian interest, but clearly
it is. Obvious when you point it out.

Talking of "great minds" Arlo, as you were in a parallel thread - I
too have the Python's philosophers song playing in my head ever since
I noticed Mill a couple fo weeks ago. (In fact the post I blogged was
entitled "of his own free will" and made explicit reference to the
song "meme" playing in my head as a result. it was the meme that led
me to mental "free-will" rather than social "freedom" of course.)

Perhaps rather than great minds, it's really great memes ?
Same difference anyway.
Sorry for interrupting, I'm enjoying learning from your exchange.
Ian

PS I saw a whole book in Barnes & Noble the other day on the subject
of the Pythons and Philosophy.

On 6/1/06, Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> [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
>
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