KennebecTom.com
  • Home
  • Drums
  • Reading
  • Kayaking Maine
    • The Equipment
  • There Oughta Be...
    • Gymnopedie
  • KennebecTom's Favorite Waterville-Winslow Restaurants
  • The Best (material) Things Ever
  • Favorite quotes
  • Maine History
  • Other sites & pages

We Fear The Freedom Of Others

10/28/2012

0 Comments

 
Postulate:  We fear the freedom of others.  Apply to topic of your choice, and I think it explains a lot of human behavior.  It sounds like a great quote to me.  I Googled it and find no first page hit.  So I'm claiming it and adding to my favorite quotes, ascribed to...yours truly.  Feel free to quote me.  As in, "Well, Tom McCowan once said, 'We fear the freedom of others.'  And that explains that."  Or, "Well, Tom McCowan believes we fear the freedom of others."  Paraphrase as, "Freedom is all good and wonderful, until someone is doing something you don't like, something that threatens you, or something you don't understand.  Then, of course, you fear it, and seek to gather like-minded people to make it stop."

This thought came to me reading the morning news.  While I was writing, a friend reported on Facebook an incident which evidenced this very instinct.  Google revealed a quote that, “Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom,” by someone named Marilyn Ferguson, and a few paraphrased expressions of the same.

There are the free, and those who fear them.  The fearful will seek to ban or restrict the free.  The free will seek to persist in the exercise of their freedoms.  Sometimes abuse of a freedom increases the ranks of the fearful until the free are constrained due to their flagrancy in use of their freedom.

Americans are by now very familiar with the expression, "Freedom Isn't Free."  I also suggest that, "Freedom Isn't Fear."  Corollary:  "Fear Isn't Freedom."  (adding those to my quote page, too; and wouldn't they make great T-shirts?)  And I note that most political campaigning seems to focus on telling us to fear, what to fear, and how much to fear.  Most political spin control involves tortured explanations of why not to fear, or more often, "Yes, yes, but you should fear the alternative MORE."

I, for one, am tired of being told to fear.  In fact, I'm a bit pissed.  It start with September 11.  With the President, the government as a whole, and the media, explicitly telling us to fear.  They even established a color coded system for fear.  Maybe DHS called it a threat level.  But if the nature of the threat is unclear, and you can't take any action to avoid it, then what good is the warning - it's basically just a fear level indicator.  "Experience Fear Level Orange, Now!"  Fear was used as a justification for invading countries and infringing our liberties with the Patriot Act.  And now fear has become such common parlance, that political expression really seems to have forgotten how to inspire us with positive statements, or articulate comprehensible plans to establish defined objectives.

Fear is powerful because it overwhelms our capacity for logic and critical thinking, and our curiosity.  It appeals to the panic centers of our old mammal brains and inspires us to fight or flee, or to herd-like unquestioning behavior.  It moves us to tribal formation - teams and political parties - and de-personification of others.

Whenever you're confronted with a message, I implore you to analyze it and ask, "Is this trying to appeal to my sense of fear."  And if the answer is yes, I suggest the thing to be feared most may be the proponent of the message.
0 Comments

At What Point Does Facebook Become A Public Utility?

9/21/2012

0 Comments

 
Popularity can have unintended consequences.  Electricity became really popular.  The telephone became really popular.  Downright necessities.  Or so we believe.  When they are unavailable, people panic.  They riot and loot.  Civil unrest.  Cats and dogs living together.  

People express a great deal of angst over Facebook's constant tinkering with the appearance and functionality of the service.  And Facebook has startlingly more users than any given electrical system, or phone system, or water or sewer system.  That body of users is even international.

Facebook is clearly seeking to be THE INTERNET.  It wants to be where you search for a business.  It wants to replace email.  It wants to take over chat.  Facebook wants to insinuate itself into human society and be important and relevant and necessary.  To foster the communication that drives movements and change and causes...and ends them.

What if they succeed?  What if people start to feel entitled?  What if it causes civil unrest when they switch us to Timeline?  Or looting when the server goes down?  What if Facebook imposes a big fee messaging once the Postal Service is defunct and email has been forgotten?

So, maybe there is a point at which Facebook winds up regulated like utilities.  Maybe they'd have to go before a Board or Commission and beg to be allowed to change the official color to green.  Or to allow people under 13 to use it.

Or, maybe it's more than that.  Because Facebook allows people of many nations to mingle and share subversive ideas, and blend cultures, and corrupt each other governments start to get a little jittery.  Perhaps the U.N. Secret Police so feared by Texas judges show up in Mark Zuckerberg's office and say, "Mr. Zuckerberg, we need to talk.  Here's how it's going to be...."

Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Department of Homeland Security has already demanded a setting that makes it everybody's Friend - a member of everyone's innermost circle. Or maybe Mark is the secret head of DHS and Facebook runs on government servers.

We might need Neo soon.
0 Comments

    The Daily Consternation 
    ​covering Maine, music, and more.

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Tom lives on the east side of the Kennebec River and works on the west.  He relocated from Arizona to Maine, by pure choice,  in 2001 and loves music and history.  He may change any viewpoint expressed on this site at will and without warning.

    Topics

    All
    Atlantic Music Festival
    Community Development
    Drug Policy
    Everything Else
    Fine Arts
    Firearms
    History
    Maine Life
    Music
    Nostalgia
    Performing Arts
    Poetry
    Politics
    Rants
    Reviews
    Site Purpose And News
    Travel

    Archives

    January 2017
    December 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2010
    March 2010
    February 2009

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.