Freedom and civilization

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Just an observation about the effects of the so-called progress of civilization and human societies on our independence and freedom. When humans were engaged in hunting and gathering food to survive, tens of thousands of years ago, man was completely self-sufficient, he was able to get food for himself and his family, he was able to provide a home, he was able to protect himself and others, in short, the human could take care of himself and was able to survive in almost any circumstance on his own. But as the years go by and societies become more complex and civilizations begin to progress, this condition begins to be lost, and the human becomes increasingly dependent on society, the human stops being self-sufficient and begins to need tens, hundreds, thousands and even millions of people to be able to live their life normally. The development and progress of civilization has led to the loss, to a great extent, of independence, and to some important degree, of human freedom. The modern human is less capable in many ways than the human of thousands of years ago, however modern societies can be classified as much more successful, in terms of material development, than those of the past. This is explained because modern societies have opted for specialization in which each human dedicates himself to one or a few things while leaving the others to his fellow citizens, which leads to greater progress in these areas, but at the same time, in a greater dependence on society, and a greater degree of vulnerability with respect to any danger or threat.

Modern man cannot fend for himself as a hut dweller ten thousand years ago, but he cares little, because he has become accustomed to his life of material comfort and artificially created dependence. This seems to indicate that the development of society is inexorably linked to the loss of individuality, independence, and freedom in human beings, until the development of machines, and the human becomes practically useless for everything, even for the most basic tasks, without the help of a device. That seems to be the next step in social evolution. It seems that we are heading towards a future in which the human is no longer capable of doing anything by himself without the help of others, and there are great possibilities that this other is the state or big corporations, virtually leaving the people in a state of total subordination to absolute power. To what extent can freedom be voluntarily exchanged for guarantees of security before reaching oppression? Are we submitting ourselves in exchange for comfort? Is the loss of our freedom inevitable in the face of social advance?

Some people believe that technological advancement and social development, far from taking away our freedoms, guarantee it, because supposedly we will reach a point where the human has all his needs satisfied, and will only have to work on what he really wants, without having to worry about their survival. From this being so, the reality is that the human will find himself in a position of extreme dependence on society, and on those who have control of it. Even so, the most probable thing is that the vast majority of people will never reach a similar state, and said "freedom" —if you can call that way someone who depends on everyone else to be free— will only be given to those who are at the top of the social pyramid, who will be increasingly free at the expense of everyone else.

I am not trying to criticize the social advance and the progress of civilization, nor the technological development, I just wonder if the loss of our own independence is inevitable to achieve it. Everything seems to indicate that the advance of civilization, at least what we call progress, is heading towards a reduction in human freedom, and a greater dependence on the collective. What do you think about it? Is it possible to make progress without losing the freedom, independence, and individuality of people, or does it need to be so?


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I feel it is about rediscovering that most of the shiny customs of society to solve a given problem have very workable alternatives. If we only knew them and had found out just how workable they are we could greatly lessen our ties to society and the matrix.
But since the matrix' demands are ever increasing - the burden on people to somehow participate in all these systems just to scrape the funds together to survive in that structure - we tend to lose sight of what is possible and maybe even healthier for us and nature.

I feel we accept privileges too often and pay a hefty price for it that we don't immediately recognize. A small backing off of "progress" would be healthier in the long run, it'S just hard to recognize it with all these distractions.

A great article!

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Completely agree. I think part of the problem is that we tend to have a very narrow vision of what progress means, as if it were only possible in one direction, to see the world in a linear and one-dimensional way. But there are always alternatives, that is the key word I think, alternatives at the individual level and at the collective level, there are many directions which can be taken, not only where we are currently heading, and those directions can also be progress. So maybe taking a step or two back and moving in another direction might not be so crazy.

I feel we accept privileges too often and pay a hefty price for it that we don't immediately recognize.

Me too. I often play with the idea that, in the same way that the Spanish exchanged mirrors and trinkets for gold to the Native Americans, as the legend says, we too exchange, but something more valuable than gold, such as our freedom, for some different types of mirrors such as screens. In both scenarios, slavery was close.

Anyway, thanks!

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Terrence McKenna has a lot to say on specialisation too. Especially with diet specialisation. In essence though, the more specialised a species becomes in any area, the greater their susceptibility to even the slightest environmental changes.
Peace.

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I just wonder if the loss of our own independence is inevitable to achieve it. Everything seems to indicate that the advance of civilization, at least what we call progress, is heading towards a reduction in human freedom, and a greater dependence on the collective. What do you think about it? Is it possible to make progress without losing the freedom, independence, and individuality of people, or does it need to be so?

... it depends what you mean by "progress", as you already mentioned.

Good article, by the way. Those thoughts do come to the surface nowadays more often.

I am trying to give some answers or my thoughts and observations:

Not only is there nothing linear about progress, not only the fact that more and more specialised activities lead to greater and greater dependency, but also the associated dumbing down of human thinking and doing ability is a reality for me. The less I use my own body, proverbially also my extremities like eyes, ears, nose and legs, arms, hands, to nourish, clothe and live, makes me a living being more helpless than a newborn animal.

Progress, in my current judgement, is a myth.

I have been involved in sewing for some time and have looked at a few things and realised that if I want to learn to sew with a sewing machine, I won't learn to sew by hand in the first place. But sewing by hand is much more educational, satisfying and basically effective. But no one who is fascinated by machines believes that.

First of all, to see what is effective, I ask myself how much clothing I actually need and how much I am able to care for, wash, mend and sew. I realise that it is no problem at all to have few pieces of clothing and could sew for others to boot. It's not faster with a machine, it's just different. Anyone who has ever had to cut fabrics themselves, organise the cuts, calculate them mathematically, sew them to fit one another, will find that working with a machine has the smallest of all shares in this process. The machine can only sew straight ahead and it always joins the upper and lower fabrics together. These are very limited possibilities and small fine works are not only less quick to do with a machine, they are impossible to do in parts. The work that cannot be done with a machine can be eliminated, but then you change the way of making clothes as a whole.

A machine is only good if you learn how the machine works. But if I'm not a mechanic, if I don't know how it works, which parts have which function, I can't repair it when it breaks down. I then need a specialist to take care of such things for me. If I then want to learn to master the machine, I need years of experience, which ties up my time and energy.

A sewing machine consists of hundreds of individual parts, it is an extremely complex apparatus, has many coils, springs, gears, etc., and all that just to be able to sew straight. The effort that goes into making such a machine compared to what it can actually do is, in principle, disproportionate to its usefulness. So if I did without the machine itself and just sewed by hand, I would get to my goal just as effectively: to dress myself.

Much more important, therefore, is the part of providing the raw materials, such as hand needles and above all: fabric. Making fabric yourself is much more time-consuming than processing it. Making silk, wool or other fabrics from raw material requires weaving. The finer, the more work. We can imagine how many silkworms, sheep, hemp and cotton have to be used for this. Weaving machines are therefore quite a useful thing because they actually work much more efficiently, that is, they are much faster. Unfortunately, however, this leads to an overconsumption and oversupply of machine weaving fabrics.

This should bring us to the question of how much of our own clothing we actually need over our lifetime, and the answer would be: as little as possible.

Fashion is therefore completely irrelevant, the entire fashion and clothing industry is irrelevant.

My thesis is that people are most satisfied when they are able to take care of themselves. They don't need anyone to tell them what to do: they see it for themselves.

The reason why people believe in technology and depend on it is probably because they are ashamed of not having learned anything sensible, and after many decades in the world, some things can no longer be learned or undone. Limiting oneself to pure consumption, but not really being able to do anything that provides for oneself, is a mortification to the ego, which does not want to feel useless. Coupled with the realisation of dependence on specialists, it seems easier to suppress such things and simply pretend that such normality can just go on indefinitely.

It would already help if we generally believed less that there must be authorities to give direction or take responsibility for us.

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(Edited)

Right, I agree with the conclusions that you have reached thanks to your experience with sewing. Machines, since their implementation, have always had the consequence of generating oversupplies, which ends up producing overconsumption. That is because that is precisely its strong point, the quantity, after all the machines were created for mass production. At the time of the industrial revolution, when the first machines began to be used, the objects produced in factories by these machines were of poorer quality than the objects produced by, say, a craftsman, who spent more time on it and paid more attention to detail. The only advantage that industrially produced objects had was that they were mass-produced, of lower quality but made in greater quantity, which made them cheap. If they were cheaper, they were more accessible to the population who could save money, or even buy more. These cheap objects ended up taking over the market and putting artisans out of work. In a short time, factories spread throughout Europe beginning the transition to capitalism, whose promise was to make everyone rich thanks to the production of trinkets.

Machines will make work easier with the goal of increasing production, but I am of the belief that if you want something genuinely of quality, you have to look for something that is not done in an automated way.

This should bring us to the question of how much of our own clothing we actually need over our lifetime, and the answer would be: as little as possible.

I like to ask myself that question but in general, how many things that we have do we really need during our lifetime? I think we would be surprised to find out that the answer is, just like yours: very little.

People can have very simple lives and be happy, actually, we don't need too much, but I think most of the time we fall into a kind of illusion when we see the new objects, the new clothes, the new shoes, the new phone, and we end up buying a lot of things that we don't need, that don't make us happier, and that we'll eventually end up throwing away. It is a trap. And it is likely that this comfort-inclined lifestyle takes us precisely to the opposite place we want to go, leaving us, as I said in the post, less free, less independent, less happy, etc.

Maybe you are right, nobody likes to feel useless, that seems a good answer, but I think that it is never too late to learn, and more considering where the other option leads. I think the only reason we decide to settle is because we don't see that the effort is worth the benefits, but usually the benefits are greater than we can see.

Thanks for stopping by and for the thoughtful comment. Cheers!

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Thank you for engaging with me. We do that for quite some time now, and I always enjoy it.

Machines will make work easier with the goal of increasing production, but I am of the belief that if you want something genuinely of quality, you have to look for something that is not done in an automated way.

Yes, I totally agree with that. It is so much forgotten that we can do many many things with our own bodies.

I certainly would be more happy if I could see that more people around me come to that conclusion and let themselves not being lured by advertisements. (Though they can be sometimes a source of inspiration for my own doings).

... I think that it is never too late to learn, and more considering where the other option leads. I think the only reason we decide to settle is because we don't see that the effort is worth the benefits, but usually the benefits are greater than we can see.

Yes.

Cheers to you, too!

P.S. Oh, and I wrote a new article with that topic and integrated some of your answers from this one into it.

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