i have reread the social contract-rousseau for my “modern political thought” course and while it is fresh in my mind i want to bring into discussion this particular concept which i found stimulating: giving part of your freedom in order to maintain it on the whole( entering a pact which is known as the social contract and thus forming society). isn’t it contradictory to give freedom in order to obtain it( rousseau “proves” it’s not but yea…). also does “legitimate” authority mean “voluntary” submission by the citizens, as rousseau believes?( i agree but i want to hear as always dissenters).
for those who haven’t read it( and don’t bother with wikipedia’s article about the book it’s shit, maybe i’ll rewrite it myself) it’s basically a rip off of the Prince combined with neo platonism. rousseau investigates about the nature of the “social contract”, about “natural” laws, authority, society, and tries to give his definition and suggestions for what type of government is best( he seems to favour direct participation in government by citizens) for what circumstances and uses his examples mainly from Rome
This is an over simplification. The way you have it worded, is not necessarily a contradiction per se, but more of a superfluous means to the ultimate end.
Its not like like you temporarily become a totally freedom-less slave to your authority figures. In general, certain freedoms are limited for the protection of others. For example, the freedom to murder is barred so that the freedom to live is protected. If no one can murder, then you can’t get murdered. Also, if no one can steal, you won’t get robbed.
Your freedoms are granted to you implicitly. No where in any legal document is the freedom to be not killed, or the freedom to be not robbed stated. This is what is meant by “giving up freedoms.” In order to live in a healthy functional society you have to give up some freedoms. To moral people such freedoms like killing and stealing to moral people would seem like no-brainers, and do not consciously give up, but we mustn’t take that for granted.
Volunteering or mutual agreements to cooperate with one another in today’s society is non-existent with social cooperation in this age being entirely unknown. Just one more reason why the social contract is no contract at all.
Infact the only way that modern society can force people to cooperate anymore since they longer do it for themselves out of free sincerity in this era ironically is through monetary incentives or coercion because without such devices people simply wouldn’t do anything and since our material existence has destroyed any resemblance of actual social communities everything is then operated on the value of the market where all individuals become ones and zeros in a digital world.
Today’s society operates on forced coercion and deception along with the threat of hunger or the forced removal of people from their own homes. It is as simple as that.
Today’s society operates on market privation with the threat of scarcity followed by public defamation and humiliation.
( It wasn’t always like this but that is a much different subject altogether.)
I don’t believe this is universally true. Some people get along with each other happily, with mutual respect and true concern for others well being, ‘‘just nobody in this car’’.
The main reasons that the social contract is no contract at all are; that it does not concretely and explicitly exist, and we have not signed it.
You are wrong to believe an unwritten contract is no contract. I’ve collected on a verbal contract in a court of law. So long as people uphold their end of the bargain the bargain is good. The problem is that when law often enough fails to provide justice, people will begin seeking it on their own. Does this mean the contract is invalid? It is not invalid because people break their end of it. It is invalid because they need to break their end of it. No one can live without justice. It is essential to life, and all the social contract does is put off for a moment what is every person’s right, which is justice. This is done in the name of peace. This is done to end feud violence, and make possible the nation states we know today. The justice must be forthcoming. The desire of the people for peace cannot be taken for permission to deny themm justice and suffer them with abuse. It does not matter how much injustice is made legal by acts of government. Law is just, or not law. Abelard said this: Jus is the genus, and lex is a species of it. If it is not just it is not law.
You break it, you feel the consequences. It sure does smell/taste/look like a contract - even though no physical contract exists. But no-one pretended that it actually did exist, but nevertheless its an useful abstraction to explain the functions of society and our own obligations.
I don’t believe that the current market is universal either however that doesn’t stop the pressing reality that most industrialized nations no longer embrace cooperation fully anymore and that a overwhelming majority of people everyday are forced physically do things they don’t want to do.
We live in a world of perpetual retardation and absurdity.
Where does this go on anymore? Please tell me where since I have been looking for such a place my whole entire life.
( This exists in small isolated parts of the world untouched by market thinking perhaps but everywhere else I am afraid your thoughts are reduced to ludicrous dreaming.)
What causes you to believe that the social contract is only a threat of consequences? It is an obligation of society to provide justice, and is the commitment of the population to not take law into their own hands. It has nothing to do with actual crime. That is another issue altogether except in one sense. It is that no person should enforce his own law upon others, and that law is the provence of society. So; all concede that it is the state which seeks justice on behalf of its citizens, and no man will legally seek vengeance. No civilization, and in fact, no large community can survive if vengeance leads everyone by the snout. Still, both honor and justice are essential values to humanity, and the burden is not on them alone, but on everyone, to seek justice for all injured people.
In other words it is a religious invisible inconspicuous document driven by hysteria which pretends to be moral and in being the best interests of all people but in the end realistically through its ulterior motives it is a force used to threaten people into making them docile cattle for marketable investments.
This is how I am interpretating your post. Are we by chance on the same page here? If we are well I certainly agree.
This gets a little metaphysical, because it is all around you. You likely are unaware of it because these people do not functionally exist in your universe. If your persona is perceived by the general public as I perceive it from your writings, these people avoid you, or not. This is actually my experience, but careful observation over a long period of time has allowed me glimpses of this ‘‘parallel universe’’ but acceptance into it has been elusive.
I recognize your observations as accurate, maybe a little exaggerated, but I rarely accept your conclusions.
While seeing clearly the situation at hand is absolutely essential to changing it, simply shouting that something sucks will rarely improve a situation.
Having recognized the inadequacies of the existing notion of a social contract, would a renegotiation and formalization be a rational next step?
Don’t count on me becoming metaphysical anytime soon. I despise metaphysics.
I’m a materialist sharp shooter as well a empiricist.
I believe the described somthing is a manipulative fabrication that beyond the naive ponderings of individuals in support of it, it itself does not exist therefore there is nothing to improve.
Only the individuals in support of such a delusion believes there is somthing to improve. They believe their delusions to be so real that in their hysteria they demand that everyone throw their attention away to them without regard to how others feel differently in comparison.
In spite of your beliefs, there exist informed ponderers who are adversely effected by the non-existent something, and have good reason to seek an improvement.
This suggests you believe that you have some psychic ability to determine the thoughts and motivations of large groups of people without having any direct or meaningful contact with them. How is that not metaphysical?
Here you embody a non-existent object with intention and motivation. That is quite metaphysical.
My previous observation was more metaphorical than metaphysical, and was derived from personal observations, however distorted they may be.
Large groups of people with whom you have no contact, and are not aware of, are an empirical reality. Your writing suggests a rigid and narrow perception that assures the avoidance of certain people.
