On 23 December 2014 at 00:07, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:
> Modern societies provide more potential freedom, for sure. I could > theoretically travel to almost any part of the world I desire and be there > having breakfast before Christmas. > > Do modern societies provide more real freedom? Consider the life of the > peasants under european medieval feudalism. The modern view on this part of > history is that peasants had much more free time to use as they pleased in > comparison to modern middle class workers. > > Consider even kids. They are less free than they ever were. These days, > their entire lives consist of structured activities (which is necessary to > accommodate their parents also highly structured lives). > I absolutely agree with you on this. I always pooh-pooh anyone who harks back to some mythical "golden age" of rustic simplicity and new age-ness, but I also agree that THIS isn't a golden age either. The awful thing is that this actually could be, but of course the system has been hijacked by a few ultra rich people ... "because they're worth it" ... while everyone else is stuck in the shoulders-to-the-wheel noses-to-the-grindstone to support them. So on that basis it's just medievalism wearing suits rather than crowns. Why is Apple Inc worth more than Sweden? Because the Swedes don't employ enough Third World slavery... And yet 50 years ago some of us were hoping for a technological utopia. Turns out it wasn't for everyone, just the lucky few. The rest of us (the "99%") get "bread and circuses". -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
