Monday, March 13, 2017

Nature and Liberty. Free Will and Free Swill.

Unfettered Liberty favors Free Swill over Free Will.

Will implies control, restraint, vision, focus, direction, design, and destiny. Something greater than impulsive want of instant gratification so common among children, boors, and animals.
Will is about challenging gravity and climbing a mountain. That requires will, stamina, commitment.

Human nature is programmed to prefer Swill.
Ease, comfort, fun, pleasure. Human nature prefers the slide than the climb. The slide requires no will and flows with swill. Gravitational pull of human nature favors the swill. It takes no effort to go down a slide. It takes effort to climb the slope. Of course, effortless slide eventually hits bottom, whereupon one is compelled to make the climb to enjoy the slide once more.

Western Freedom used to be defined by the Power of Will. It was about using one's freedom to pursue one's destiny with determination, discipline, and conviction.
Now, western freedom is mostly about Surrender to Swill. Pig out, orgy-porgy, hedonism, infantilism.

The genius of capitalism is to entice people toward the Will with the promise of Swill. Capitalism sees human nature as a slave of pleasure; therefore, people will work and toil to gain pleasures. When levels of productivity were lower in the past, people worked mainly to meet basic needs of survival. Also, the lingering power of tradition and morality put a brake on the anarchic allure of pleasure. But once productivity levels rose to the point where all basic needs were met and traditional morality was drowned under the flood of 'youth culture' and pop culture, the main purpose of work & will became the pursuit of unfettered pleasure or swill. When so much Will is committed to Swill, isn't there something wrong with the picture? When so much that is thought good and noble -- work ethic, determination, and diligence -- is expended for the attainment of opportunities for gross behaviors, what is the core meaning of our civilization?  Imagine a society where everyone works very hard so that, on weekends, everyone can get together to indulge in drugs and orgies.
But there is worse. While some people still use the Will to afford the Swill, many people demand the Swill without Will on their part. They see Swill as a 'right'. They demand free computers and internet connections as a 'human right' so that they can indulge in little more than video-games, celebrity culture, and pornography.

We need to be aware of the dangers of Swill. It can lead to dissipation.
While one can become exhausted by an excess of Will, one can become enervated from excess of Swill... like Ottoman Sultans who did little else but have orgies and pig out.

Unless individual liberty is hardened by values and vision, it leads to Free Swill than Free Will.

Also, a healthy society prefers meaningful pleasures over shallow ones. Deepest happiness comes from love and family. So, the main purpose of will & work should be to have a family. Money spent on the well-being of one's family as torchbearers of one's race and culture is surely more meaningful and consequential than money blown on momentary pleasures.

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