a man might declare, “I want to be free” but without
a just and equal society, personal freedom is not possible…
for acts of injustice by the society take away or limit your already
limited freedom…now one fallacy is by taking away other people rights,
you increase your rights, but freedom and justice and equality doesn’t work like that…
because of the interconnectedness of society, you can’t limit the damage from
taking away rights from one segment of society because it affects the other segments
of society…recall the thinking about systems… anything that affects one
part of the system, pushes on the other parts of the system…take your car…
if the electrical system is damaged, it affects the other parts of the car system…
or if your carb is damaged, it will affect how your car runs or doesn’t run, as the
case may be… damaging part of the political system or the social system, damages
all parts of the systems… that is how systems work…
so if you want personal freedom, you need a system that has justice and a system
that has equality in it…but the more interesting aspect is this…
if you want a better system, one that works, you must begin with the parts,
that is, with you…a system only works as well as its parts and as a part of
a system, the political system and part of the cultural system and as part
of the social system and as part of the economic system and as part of the…
you must work on your aspect of those systems…if you want a more moral society,
then become more moral yourself…if you want a kinder, more gentler system,
then become kinder and more gentler…the system can only be what you put
into it… in other words, garbage in… garbage out…the problem has been,
it is the other guys fault for the system being bad, not my fault… but if you don’t
work on being a better person, then it is your fault because the system is part of us
and we are part of the system…the improvement, the betterment of a system,
of a society, lies with the improvement and betterment of ourselves…
better human beings make a better human society…
and therein lies the problem today… we aren’t better human beings
and it shows in the society today…
Kropotkin