Kant's 'freedom'

In Kant's writing, freedom is the main component in the progression toward enlightenment. It is interesting to view Kant's idea of freedom in light of our discussion of Rousseau. Kant speaks of freedom as free thinking, a scholarly form of freedom. Freedom of thinking is independant of freedom from society's constraints. In fact, Kant says that freedom of thinking is enabled by adherence to the laws of government.
This is a completely different concept of freedom from that of Rousseau. Rousseau idealizes freedom from all of the constriants and customs of civilized life. He speaks of the state of nature as if it was a euphoric time classified by freedom that can never again be achieved. He says, "savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke which civilized man wears without a murmur." Kant's idea of freedom could not even exist without this societal 'yoke' that is such a burden and an obstacle to Rousseau's 'freedom.' The word and the idea of freedom is classified by completely different terms and ideas in these two texts, and both concepts cannot even exist on the same plane.

Shelley---Declaration of Rights

Most of Shelley's Declaration sounded very familiar, probably because of its constitutional language, and because most of these rights have been discussed, argued, ignored, and celebrated throughout history. However, there were a couple of rights that made me consider the present state of the world, and the events that are currently happening. I am talking about rights 17 and 19.
I guess Shelley would be an anti-Bush critic.--Right 17..'No man has a right to do an evil thing that good may come.' When I read this, I immediately thought of the war in Iraq. Wasn't the opposite of this 'right' the exact justification for the war? And Right 19, "Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder." Obviously, same thing. It is impressive how writing from two centuries ago can still be so applicable. I bet Shelley would make a good president.

More on Rousseau....

As it is, I have a hard time agreeing with a lot of what Rousseau says, but I found this specific example to be especially difficult to reconcile. On page 128 he says, "...since the right to property is only conventional and of human institution, everyone may dispose at will of what he possesses; but this is not the case with the essential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty, which everyone is allowed to enjoy and of which it is at least doubtful whether anyone has the right to divest himself."
What I extracted from this passage is that man can give up property because it is a human construct, but liberty, a gift of nature is not for us to give.
And..............
On page 125, Rousseau says, "savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke which civilized man wears without subjection. We must not, therefore, look to the degradation of enslaved people as a basis for judging man's natural disposition for or against servitude, but look rather to the prodigious achievements of all free peoples who have striven to protect themselves from oppression......I feel that it is not for slaves to argue about liberty."
This passage bothers me because first of all, he is making the savage man sound valiant in relation to the current man. He is ignoring all factors that lead people to being enslaved, and is then removing credibility from those who are enslaved. If people were not enslaved, then there would be no bar by which to decipher liberty. Since one man being at the 'mercy' of another man is a central step in moving toward inequality in his logic, it is odd to me that he would give credibility to those who are free, when in reality people would not have liberty unless judged against those who are lacking it. Any thoughts on this??

Rousseau Part 2

Rousseau's descriptions of the savage man are a little hard for me to stomach. He idealizes the state of nature, and makes it sound pure, and naive. He makes the state of nature, a state of survival where man is a very basic being, sound like something we should regret not being a part of. The state of nature was a cyclic time where people lived day to day, rather than looking to the future. Progress was not a goal, it was an accident. Is this really something to strive for? This is strange to me in the context of Modernity because progress is such a poignant theme, and it is something that is nonexistent in this ideal state of nature.
Rousseau takes away humanity in his description of the savage man. His hypothetical man does not care about his offspring, the other sex, or anything. He picks and chooses the basic instincts that his savage man adheres to. The instinct to survive is clearly something that Rousseau's savage man possesses, but what about parental instincts, or group instincts. To Rousseau, these are negative accidental products that followed the state of nature, but who is to say if that is really what they are? I guess I just have a hard time buying into everything Rousseau is saying even if it is a hypothetical situation of our past.

Rousseau Reading

Last week, in our discussion of Modernity, the word 'progress' was mentioned quite a bit. We talked about Modernity as an era of progress in that industrialization began to replace agriculture, and the future became an opportunity rather than a repitition of the past. We also discussed Modernity as a period when there was a strong inclination to compare the present to the past.
The idea of Modernity as a period of looking at the past with an inclination toward future progress was fresh in my mind as I read Rousseau, and these ideas were strongly embodied in his work as I read Part 1. Part 1 was simply the background for the main points of this book, which I am sure come later. Rousseau, as a product of his time, took ample effort to look way into the past at savage man in the state of nature in order to explain the way the present state of man came into existance. It was interesting to see the general theme that we discussed in class applied by a specific writer, who is one of the main voices of Modernity.