"Thanks, Winstone! Hangin' Bugs, hangin' by a thread...Hola hippies: Didja ever think about "free will?" Well, I got on the cap with the tassel (and not the vessel with the pestle or the flagon with the dragon, so beware: Philosophy comin'!
As the conditions under which success in this culture becomes more and more a MATTER OF SHEER, DUMB LUCK, I am growing weary of listening to folks who are well, or better-off criticizing other folks who are less well-situated, less "well off," as if the less-fortunate were somehow deficient in industry, or had abused their opportunities. And then proceed to blame the less fortunate for their beleaguered situations because they "made bad choices."
Man, that one pisses me off. And not because I, too, made bad choices. Of course I did. Everybody's made 'em. They're just less catastrophic for some than for others, depending on your social position, usually, and that's just the fucking luck of the draw.
So, you'd be right un thinking I'm not one of those who clings to the arcane notion of "FREE WILL" within his epistemological framework.
"Free Will" is one chimera. In mythology, a Chimera (capitral "C") is a fabulous monster of disparate, unmatched parts; in literature, poets use the word to refer to "an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream. Free Will is a chimerical component of the dominant "myths" of civilization.As such, the myth of "free will" mainly serves the Owners by preserving the status quo without appearing to do so. Because "free will" makes it possible for the Bosses, who DO control the destinies of the rest of us, to assign blame to the us proles for NOT surmounting the leaden lots allotted them at the bottom of the social pile and dragging ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
It's part of that whole "you had choices" condemnation process that relegates the littler folks to their positions and provides an explanation for why we/they're still on the bottom when we had those "choices."
AND Which has additional virtues: Not only does "free will" NOT implicate the Owners in the forces keeping people down, but it also actively excuses their predations, since the idea oif free will implies we might somehow resist them.
One has no more "free will" than one has choice of one's parents, or of one's native language.
Ich wird Ihnen am Strand sehen! Back to Hippie Central, Win-Stone!
Everyday everyone expresses free will in everything they do. All of the Choices we make in life are our own. Sometimes the choices we make are not easy one's but never the less they remain the choices of our own choosing.
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