Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
"the virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself"..I think this is his ultimate point and he attempts to explain how it's been lost, muddied and corrupted...I think he's Australian, maybe having a slightly different perspective looking in...
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I agree that it is his ultimate point . . . just a little muddied (if not corrupted) by his attempts. Never got what he meant by true liberty or how that was viewed and espoused by "ancient political thought." His allusions to various types of liberty which drifted into each other and coalesced into contemporary conception of liberty and the drift away from ancient older and better definition of liberty was not clarified. Am interested in what is that older and better definition.
Am a bit wary of his perception of Lockean individualism being an "atomization" and a conquest of nature. Kinda think Locke didn't see it that way, but that's neither here nor there. I think he is on to something, though, regarding our progressive alienation from nature by conquering it and making it less and less relevant, even more a threat than a haven--while all along pretending that we should protect the environment from ourselves.
That may well be the most destructive loss of ancient wisdom we contemporaries suffer--our being separate from nature and superior to it. That "hubris" (bow to Spence) propels us into the dynamic of the progressive State in which all, including nature, is controlled by experts, and liberty is defined as that which the State allows.