I get the impression that msharmony has sort of a negative view of what the meaning of "freedom" is.

Conrad posted on some other thread what freedom means that was very good I thought. I can't remember which thread it was. Msharmony, just seemed to ignore it.

Freedom does not mean that people can or should be able do what ever they want and even break the law or fly through the air etc... That is silly.

Here is a post by Conrad I am reposting it here. I think it makes good points.


http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individualism.html

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.



Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.

An individualist is a man who says: “I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone—nor sacrifice anyone to myself.”

The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

Mankind is not an entity, not an organism, or a coral bush. The entity involved in production and trade is man. It is with the study of man—not of the loose aggregate known as a “community”—that any science of the humanities has to begin . . . .

A great deal may be learned about society by studying man; but this process cannot be reversed: nothing can be learned about man by studying society—by studying the inter-relationships of entities one has never identified or defined.

Yeah, it is. And absolute freedom is a myth anyway. You can't get that while living in a concrete, material world. You especially can't get it when you don't live there alone.

My personal philosophy is that individual freedom must always be balanced with enough social responsibility to ensure minimal encroachment by individuals upon each other's freedoms. The whole "your rights end where my nose begins" deal. Sometimes I have to give up getting everything I want so that somebody else can have what they need, etc. (Like I can't start a huge bonfire in my backyard if it's going to cause problems for my neighbors, just as an example.)

Well, I'll disagree with Conrad there (nothing new) but my point on freedom stands.

I'm willing to be ruled by necessity, by the laws of physics, and by any community government in which I am allowed an equal say in writing the rules.

I are not a sheeple.
BB paid-to-posters are supplied a list of topics and a list of topics to oplnionate in.

Seriously? You disagree with this:

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

Wow... non sequitur much?

Where did I say or quote that???

I disagree with a number of things in Conrad's post. Not going to quote all of the points, because for one thing it would be off-topic for this particular subforum (indeed, we're already pretty far afield) and for another, I really don't want to spend all day on that particular discussion.

Suffice it to say that I'm a bit put off by anyone who repeatedly quotes Ayn Rand, so most of the time Conrad's posts get the TL;DR treatment from me. And while I did read what you quoted before, yes I do disagree with portions of it. Then again, it's Ayn Rand, and I have zero respect for her because she was one of the 20th century's greatest hypocrites.

Just one reason for a thread that is full of contradictions in the opening post

Msharmony posts this in the O.P.

more freedom = more depression


how much freedom/individualism is TOO MUCH,, apparently , mentally speaking,, it could actually exist

***********************

So I'm not sure what her point is. I think she believes that it is possible for us to have "too much freedom."

and she is trying to claim that having to much freedom = more depression.

If this is what she is suggesting, I will say that I strongly disagree.

But her idea of what freedom and individualism is, is not the same as mine.

So Conrad's post about individualism is not off topic at all since that is what the O.P. is talking about.

Msharmony suggests that individualism and freedom is a bad thing or that there can be 'too much' of it.

Not true. Humans are individuals although we are all connected through spirit.

We ARE spirit, and spirit in its true form, is free!

I'm not talking so much about being "off-topic for the thread" as being off-topic for the subforum. This is the "Sports, Health and Fitness" forum, and at this point we're pretty far removed from discussing any of those three things.


(Sorry; I used to be a mod on another forum site, so old habits die hard. I tend to notice topic drift even when I'm one of the perpetrators. )

IMO, this topic is off-shot from a failed twin topic in current events.
I was THE moderator on my social site. Kinda cool holding supreme censorship powers over the masses.

Yeah, I had my own forum site for a couple of years too, but most of us just moved over to Facebook after a while. Thing is, we'd all come from one of the BIG sites, and that's where I got my start as a mod. None of us go there anymore because someone decided to fix what wasn't broken, if you get my drift.

Too bad, really... but it brought a bunch of us together and we've stayed in touch over the years. Some of us even visit each other in person from time to time, so it's all good!

Being that depression is a health issue, the topic fits this forum.

The link between depression and a lack of a support group may fit a type of depression that is psychological in origin, but the link does not necessarily fit a type of depression that is organic in origin.

Sure, if a person purposefully isolates himself/herself from other people, then that person may become more susceptible to depression.

However, a person can seek to maximize personal freedom without purposefully becoming isolated from other people.

It does if we return to talking about depression. We've been getting a bit of-topic and straying dangerously close to social philosophy. I thought I'd made that clear a couple of posts ago...


Thing is, they're intertwined, and the point of the article is that having a support structure seems to overcome the organic predisposition to depression that can result from the short allele. In other words, it has a compensatory effect that offsets genetics.


Purposeful self-isolation is usually the result, rather than the cause, of depression. Of course, it then often forms a feedback loop.


*sigh* And now we're back to "how do you define 'freedom'?"

the simple and balanced reiteration of my point

TY DODO

the article itself was referring to CULTURAL trend in terms of cultures which center more around the 'me' and cultures which center around the 'us



and how depression appers to be more prevalent
in the latter than the former

Since the topic of depression is linked by Msharmony to "individualism" and "freedom" these things too have to be addressed.

If you don't understand what she means by "freedom" and "individualism" then you can't possibly understand her point or agree with any of her conclusions.

Actually, the article said the OPPOSITE of that. It said that ME-centered individualistic cultures have MORE depression than WE-centered collectivist cultures, despite the relative prevalence of genetic markers for depression in the people who populate those the second group.

In other words, the article posits that something in the "WE" cultures offsets the negative effects of that genetic predisposition to depression, since there is less depression that manifests among those peoples.

freedom and individualism both have a scale,,,there is no absolute

its kind of like pregnant,, a pregnant woman is a pregnant woman,, but the one who is one week pregnant is not AS pregnant as the one who is 9 months


that being said,, the MORE freedoms individuals in a culture are given, the fewer BOUNDARIES/LAWS/EXPECTATIONS are present,,,,, for them

, according to the article, the more prevalent DEPRESSION will be found amongst those individuals


the more INDIVIDUALISTIC one is , that is to say, the more one feels that they are the sole concern of their universe and not obligated towards any collective, any group, any authority,,,,,,the more likely they will be (when faced with reality perhaps?) to become discouraged/disappointed/ depressed,,,,,

yes, it appears more often in the me culture than the we culture

thank you for the correction