The Freedom to be Free (Rerun: 03 April 2007)

"Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity -- and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations." -George W. Bush, Nov. 2003.

Freedom. What a meaningful word! It opens up a wealth of significance for so many in the span of just two syllables. Free-dom. No word is used more often, I imagine, in the US political realm, and yet does our President know what he says when he makes such comments? Do we understand what he wants to tell us? Are we on the same page? It's not clear to me that we are. Does freedom lead us to allow for anything? Should we encourage human expression in any capacity? Let's say we take Bush out of the picture and explore the notion of creative freedom.

I've mentioned before my stance on human sensibilities. Everyone has a sore spot or two, just as everyone has prejudices which are liable to offend. This is a reality that we all must confess to be true at the risk of missing the boat to social progress. Where does that leave us with creative freedom? It is much easier for us to advocate freedom when it is we who do the offending than if the tables were to turn. Nevertheless, we cannot pick and choose when it comes to this basic freedom. As it turns out, one man's trash is another man's treasure. We should not, however, stoop to censorship if a man's treasure is trashed. Censorship does not achieve anything beyond the cultivation of fear and alienation. It is riddled with a lack of trust in society. If what Bush said on that fateful day has any weight, we ought to celebrate the human spirit. If you agree, are you prepared to face the results? One such consequence appears as follows: My Sweet Lord.


Ought the only governance of human expression be self-governance? Freedom. What a meaningful word indeed.

Bavaria

As most of you know I'm in Munich, Germany for the summer. I'd like to able to explain to you perfectly the wonders that I've been through in my time here so far. Begrudgingly, I admit the limitations at hand. My stay is only three weeks old, and already I've learned and experience so much. It has been the best of times. It has been the worst of times, but for the most part it's been fantastic. I fulfilled a dream of mine just the other day. My flat mate invited me out with some of her friends. I didn't think much of it at first. This wasn't out of the ordinary. She had invited me to hang with various friends before. So, I got dressed and shortly thereafter we were out the door. I didn't realize it until I had trudged through the lines at the beer garden nearby what was actually taking place. Surrounded completely by Germans, I was drinking, chatting, and singing away in a Baverian beer garden. With my massive Steinkrug mug (out of which you drink by placing your hand through the handle and sort of forklifting it up towards your mouth) in hand and a bratwurst on my plate, I soon found myself in a Baverian wonderland. If you've never had this experience, I recommend it highly. The lovely atmosphere was enough to take away from the frustrations of not speaking fluent German. In case you havn't studied the language, here are some words by Mark Twain that will tune you in a bit to the world of grrrr that is German. In short, come one come all to Germany, the land of thinkers and poets (oh ya, and beer).

A Colossal Struggle

Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris The setting, you ask? Where else but the coloseum.

Name Calling in the Public Sphere

I want so badly to like Neo-Marxists. I do. They just won't let me. Take Jürgen Habermas for a brief word: hier to the Frankfurt school, world-renound voice on politics and international relations, likely the most significant living philosopher. His accomplishments both in the academic world and with successful globalization efforts are remarkable. There seems no reason that I should have a problem with him. Yet last year he published a little piece called Religion in the Public Sphere, which ruffled quite a many feather. For the most part, however, it was received well in academia, well enough to earn him the Holberg International Memorial Prize, whose first winner was Julia Kristeva.

As a blanket statement, the fundamental notion of Habermas is appealing. In watered-down terms, Habermas' idea is that in order to come upon the truth of anything, we have to talk about it. We are not, however, meant to simply talk arbitrarily, but rather to strive to fight fair when we discuss such matters. He thus puts an ethical intonation on public discourse. The point which is emphasised here is that truth does not merely concern truth, but also the relationships between those who are striving for it. Many can agree: the paradigm is practical and engaging. His interests and the problems to which he seeks solutions are also quite similar to mine.

His most unquieting claim, in any case, is that religion has no place in such discourse. The idea at work here is that though people may have religious motivations for making their decisions or for voting in a certain way, these faith-based reasons are incoherent in the public sphere and obscure what should be clearly expressable in other terms. This is secularization at its best. It seems a bit unfair, though, to assume that religious people and their ideas are meaningless in the political realm, or in any forum, and beyond that, that they should not be heard by the public ear. Perhaps faith should not be the driving force behind politics, but this does not and must not necessitate the exclusion of religion. That position would hold what it calls communicative reason on a pedistal. It seems contradictory to say that this paradigm (exhaulted ever so religiously I might add) denies a usefull role to religion.

All cultures in all eras have had religion. The attempt to go beyond himself is a fundamental part of man. If this were not so, then politics would not even exist naturally. It would have to be forced upon us. Man has a spiritual nature, so why can we not discuss, for example, a person's dignity in light of different religious traditions? Reason is not the only facet of human life that produces meaning. I would then ask you Mr. Habermas, what reason do you have for completely eradicating religion from your ideal discourse? It doesn't seem justified even by your own ideals. And let's face it, though vehemently against religion on paper, Karl Marx was himself a great prophet, and his vision for the future was highly in tune with the Hebrew understanding of justice following the Babylonian Exile. What gives?