It seems some people have bent the idea of Freedom into Utopia.

A prominant case is America. Utopia is a society where everything is perfect.

Society cannot be perfect because Humans Are Bastards. Not all of us, mind you, but there are some people that will screw you over for their personal gain.

If you give those people absolute freedom, they will never stop. The kind and innocent people will be trampled underfoot.

People will ring each others necks and and kill each other for resources, be it oil, water, or money.

Bioshock is a good deconstrucion of utopia. Everyone wanted ADAM till it got to the point of killing people.

There will always be people in power. The fewer there are, the more likely they will seek personal gain.

This is what America is not. America voids the idea of utopia because it knows it cannot exist. The Founding Fathers knew this.

They knew that it could not exist. Give one man power, and he will not stop until everything is his.

Give a few men power, and they will cut deals with each other and will team up to further themselves.

However, if you give many people power, they will cancel themselves out.

Freedom is not a right to do whatever you wish.

Freedom is the idea that YOU have enough power to resist others who have power as well. It's the idea that everyone has power, not a select few.

The Founding Fathers knew this. And so do I.

We all know that it is impossible to spread power 100% evenly, but the more even it is the more freedom there is.

People must understand that the reason I believe giving the central government more power is because they will trample us underfoot.

The less power we have, the less freedom we possess.

Considering there are still rich and poor running around, and the fact that a police force existed, I wouldn't call Rapture a place of freedom or utopia...

And Adam's main problem was less everyone wants it and more it's hella addictive and those who had a taste will go to insane lengths to get more.

Actually, the very fact that polices even exists is proof that a perfect world/society doesn't exist in Rapture. Just a failed attempt at making a utopia. edit:or in Real Life for that matter.

edited 22nd Jun '11 8:29:56 PM by Signed

I'm under the belief that a utopia is possible to reach, but that it is a process. A policy doesn't work, try something else. Let it try and work for a few years, then look at the statistics. Don't base policy on ideology, just theory. There is one exception I would make, but that's for another topic.

I have seen very plutocratic quotes from several of them...

The most "realistic"*

No matter how well liked a policy is, there will always be detractors.

edited 22nd Jun '11 8:38:31 PM by Signed

Rather than relying on quotes, I would recommend reading the Federalist Papers, or some similarly important exposition. Most of them are old enough to be in the public domain, and thus are available for free on the web, put up by enterprising nerds. (This is not to say that I disagree with your feeling.)

edited 22nd Jun '11 8:42:23 PM by Tzetze

Government history bores me sooo much... I think not.

It's not government history, it's a series of persuasive essays.

Eh, this is offtopic.

edited 22nd Jun '11 8:47:00 PM by Tzetze

As much as there is "Always going to be detractors," statistics should be the true test for political effectiveness.

But there is a line to draw. The point varies from person to person, but it has to be drawn, in order to keep my "Statistics are god" argument from backfiring, because someone's going to say that if the statistics beared out mass killings, then we should be all for it.

I am against the random governmental killing in Ikigami because I think everyone has the right to life, for instance. I am against the "medicate them into subservience" route as well. I believe that its possible to create a system which will benefit all, and everyone gives their fair share back to it as a result. If that doesn't work, however, try something else.

Here's the problem, many people are naturally greedy. Even if they have all they need, they'll still yearn for more, whatever that is, whether it's useful or useless. And if there are just enough of a resource to satisfy everyone, those who want more will start to hurt others just to take stuff from them.

And if there are more than enough for everyone to have more than they need, there will always be others who are unhappy that they are at equal levels as others, and still want more.

And then there is the existence of psychopaths, and people who specifically get pleasure from screwing others over.

edited 22nd Jun '11 9:11:15 PM by Signed

If we interpret "freedom" to mean "anarchy," I'm inclined to agree with the OP, with the caveat that many attempts to sidestep this in utopian fiction result in a society that only looks anarchic. Government becomes smaller and more fractured, but there's still a coalition of leaders and a bunch of unofficial laws.

OP, are you saying that some people are just born bad or what? It's not enough to just say that Humans are Bastards, even if you rightly admit it's just some of them. You have to go into exactly why some Humans are Bastards.

Also, Rapture is an interesting case, but that's for another time.

You know why.

If you see a nice car and you want to buy it, then you buy it, right?

Well, some people's idea of freedom is lack of rules, anarchy. So if there were no laws against it, wouldn't you just take the car?

Someone had to make that car. Now they recieve no gain from it, even though they may need it to buy food.

So, unintentionally, you've screwed whoever made that car.

My point is that freedom is not a lack of rules, it is each of us possesing enough power to oppose others.

In the Middle Ages, power was determined by how much land you own. The more land, the more wealthy and powerful you become. Whoever has the most land and the most wealth becomes king.

That was a very small portion of people. The majority of people were peasants, people who barely survived and had no choice but to give the nobles whatever they wanted because it's the only way they would get protection.

They had no freedom because they had no power.

Then the middle class arose. These people had enough power to make their own decisions because they were not forced to rely on others. They had enough power to make there own decisions and resist those who stood to prevent those decisions.

Therefore, how much freedom you have is determined by how much power you have. I'll take you back to the middle ages again and show you the life of the king.

He had the most freedom of all because he had the most power. No one would stand in his way lest he use his might to take away their power.

How much power you have determines how free you are. In America things are set up so everyone has enough power to resist others so you can make your own decisions.

Every member of our Congress should have the same power. No one in Congress has the power to void another senator's vote. They must use their power to resist one another until one fails.

This comes at the cost of being deadlocked at times. Since no one has the power to over rule others, people will fight until someone gets their way.

People in A Merica are free because we have power, a mostly even distribution of power.

Power is freedom, anarchy is not.

Freedom is not an utopia and there have to be ways of securing freedom because in 'natural state' it is pretty volatile. Anyway, deregulated society will not be perfect but it can function. I think people who search for imperfections in freedom forget the imperfections in lack of freedom

Like I said, freedom is not a lack of rules. It is the power to choose. That's what real freedom is. Power.

You are arguing that your definition of freedom is the only correct one even though it isn't. You talk about so called 'positive freedom'. It's not the only concept out there

That's assuming a lot about human nature.

I don't have to assume anything. You may preach idealism now but if it came down to it, either you or someone else would take the car.

It's human nature to further oneself.

As such, the only way to be free is to have the power to resist others.

On Humans Are Bastards: -Dons anthropology hat-

Humans, like all social animals, are physically wired to seek status within a group, because status grants security. The big boss has better chance of eating well and attracting desirable mates. Most, there are exceptions, but MOST people have inherited the gene/s to seek status (both because said gene/s seem to be dominant and because those in a position of high status were more successful breeders). The degree to which one is willing to fuck over everyone else is variable, but still there in most individuals. (Think about this: Whenever Happy Mcnicerson gets a promotion, even if he didn't screw anyone else on the way, that's still (X) people that did not get the promotion)

So yeah, humans are motivated by certain instincts which for some gods unknown reason society has decided to try to make them feel ashamed of. "Bastard" is a subjective term, but most humans are not utterly docile towards their fellow humans.

On Humans Are Bastards, this, by anarcho-pluralist Keith Preston, strikes me as relevant:

Very interesting statement

I always find it amusing when people try to say something is absolutely wrong or right. Meh.

On topic, I think the closest thing we can get to a utopia is a Post-Scarcity society. Removing the need for power seems like a pretty logical solution to societal problems.