Freedom
- A free person honors authority he respects and resists authority she does not.
Contents
Of Most Immediate Importance
WAITLIST problem
i would be willing to convene a second form of freedom seminar that met in second life and admit any students disappointed had having been closed out of the face to face seminar. i don't suggest that this would be for credit as a seminar (no doubt there would be committees to go through), but perhaps i could extend some form of writing credit.
charlie nesson
Introduction
Led by Charles and Fern Nesson. This seminar will ask the ultimately unanswerable questions about the nature of freedom and how we handle it. We will read widely in philosophy, science, literature, and law. Fern and I would like to open up a discussion with prospective students in which we plan our detailed curriculum together. We propose to do this by seeding a wiki with our starting suggestions.
For Monday, Feb. 4
- Hunter S. Thompson -- "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
- Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 â February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, famous for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become the central figures of their stories.
- John Stuart Mill -- On Liberty
- John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 â 8 May 1873), was a British philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, he was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was a teacher of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his godfather, Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was somewhat different from Bentham's.
- lao tzu, the way of life, #10, 18, 19 20,
Groups
hay redux
- fight club, book and film, to explore anarchism, when to work within, when to topple, the imposition of freedom on others
- iraq war
- revolution and ararchy
waitlist
- surveillance, systems imposes on freedom, self-surveillance
- lives of others
- unbearable lightness of being
- walden two, b.f. skinner
more time
- individual fear and freedom in different art forms;
- rocky
- music as requiring rules that can be stretched and broken
- if art is all freedom
- miles davis, bitches brew
- kuhn, paradigm shift
- nabokov, pnin
- thomas nagle, other minds
Much More Time
- Physical, biological, pyscho-social constraints on free will, and free will as an underlying assumption of freedom
- Physics
- The issue of Determinism -- if the nature of physics rules out options, then what of free will?
- In a brief history of time, the anthropic principle.
- Biology
- evolutionary game theory
- Ernest Becker, "The Denial of Death"
- Psychology & Culture
- Piaget, the mind of the child. Erikson: who sets the rules? Separating from your parents. Also, Cf. Skinner and Freud.
- Liu, accidental asian
- crusades through other eyes
we don't know
- fear, confronting fear, in a surprise activity
you name it
- what are the consequences of the different ways in which people take their freedom
- ghandi
- fanon
- battle of algiers
- james caroll, vietnam
Grab Bag
- jonathan zittrain -- perfect enforcement
- tao te ching; finding oneself
- accidental asian/ mad hatter's lunch
- who are you in context?
- piaget
- who is the interpreter of "the word"
- master/slave
- orwell's elephant: who is the slave?
- colonialism/independence
- haiti/jamaica/south africa/etc.
- battle of algiers/ satyagraha: what are the repercussions of the way in which we claim our freedom?
- constraint on identity of occupation: Mahfouz, Naipaul?
- authority - Antigone, Mill, Thoreau,Civil Disobedience
- how should a free person regard constraint?
Us
Why don't we use this space to have an open conversation about ourselves? Seminars like these are fun because of who's in them. Let's enjoy it.
Matt: I'm happy to be in this class, and I didn't realize I liked Bud.
Brian: I posted some stuff on the "Discussion" page. I wasn't sure at the time whether to post on this page or on the discussion page, ended up going with the latter. I like Bud and pretty much any kind of beer for that matter.