Visionary Society

Perspectives & Resources

Perspectives are short paragraphs summarizing any point of view about the Topic. Explore each View and then vote on it.
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Pro

Con

"Destructive and irresponsible freedom is boundless"

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Topic: How much freedom do we have in society?

Destructive and irresponsible freedom is boundless

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror.

It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

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How to Explore a Perspective

Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!

What is the Bias?
What assumptions does it make? Whose interests does it serve?

What is your Personal Experience?
How does it make you feel? How do your experiences, privileges, and personal interests affect your understanding of it?

Now, enter the heart

▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.

▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.

▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!

Opinion added by
Visionary {name_l}
on June 17, 2017

Aldous Huxley

"Our lives are comfortable but we don’t have freedom of thought or action"

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Topic: How much freedom do we have in society?

Our lives are comfortable but we don’t have freedom of thought or action

“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” “All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence. “I claim them all, said the Savage at last.

“By means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms — elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest — will remain.
The underlying substance will be a new kind of totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial.
Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

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How to Explore a Perspective

Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!

Now, enter the heart

▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.

▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.

▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!

Opinion added by
Visionary {name_l}
on April 29, 2017

Chris Hedges

"We live in a security and surveillance state"

Your response:

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Topic: How much freedom do we have in society?

We live in a security and surveillance state

The machinery of the security and surveillance state, the use of special terrorism laws and the stripping of civil liberties become ubiquitous. The lofty rhetoric of liberty and the reality of the chains readied for the public creates magic realism. Reality and the language describing reality are soon antipodal. The pseudo-democracy is populated with pseudo-legislators, pseudo-courts, pseudo-journalists, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-citizens. Nothing is as it is presented.

The kleptocrats have placed all citizens under surveillance. This is by design. They sweep up our email correspondence, tweets, web searches, phone records, file transfers, live chats, financial data, medical data, criminal and civil court records and information on movements. They do this in the name of the war on terror… They have set up surveillance cameras, biosensors, scanners and face recognition technologies in public and private places to obliterate our anonymity and our privacy. They are watching us constantly. And when a government watches you constantly you cannot use the word “liberty.” The people’s relationship to government is that of slave to master.
Chris Hedges, March 2017

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How to Explore a Perspective

Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!

Now, enter the heart

▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.

▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.

▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!

Opinion added by
Visionary {name_l}
on April 29, 2017

"We are controlled by a worldwide perception management program"

Your response:

Reach the Heart of a Perspective

Topic: How much freedom do we have in society?

We are controlled by a worldwide perception management program

Many years ago, I'm 66, I came to know that our lives, everything we do, everything we see and hear, and everything we, as "individuals" do, is the result of a worldwide long entrenched, and still being honed, perception management program.
Our dreams are infected as well.
Facebook, Twitter, and all such interactive Internet programs are portals through which we are manipulated and managed. The realization of the extent of this insidious control mechanism has yet to be widely known, and may never be sufficiently known to cause a wholesale stepping back from this abyss.
We live now under the yoke of a corporate / military / industrial alliance, one that swung into high gear about four decades ago, so successful even they themselves are amazed.
Anyone who fails to see it is deluded, and allowing themselves to be deluded.
This election year is shaping up to be the first serious attack on this organized destruction of individualism, which is why the establishment is pushing so hard for Hillary.
Sanders is the general leading us in this great battle, one we cannot afford to lose.
Social Media comment, May 22, 2016

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How to Explore a Perspective

Relax, focus. Take a step back and look at the Perspective from all sides. Now, zero in at the center!

Now, enter the heart

▶ Say something good about what you disagree with, even if there are flaws.

▶ Find causes, not symptoms. Ask what lies at the root.

▶ Have respect for people with different views, insights, and priorities!

Opinion added by
Visionary {name_l}
on April 29, 2017

Recommended Resources (Review before voting)

Sound: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Text: Many basic actions are illegal

Many basic actions are illegal

In our land of the free, it’s illegal to feed the homeless in some states. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, between 2013 and 2015, “over 26 cities and communities passed laws restricting the distribution of food to the homeless, and the number is growing every year.”

Also illegal is housing the homeless. Earlier this year, according to Splinter News, “police arrived at [a Chicago man’s] house with a warrant and threatened to condemn his property unless he closed his ‘unlawful basement sleeping area.’ ” Not illegal is taking blankets away from the homeless, as the Denver police were caught doing. Also not illegal: destroying tiny homes built for the homeless. Cops did that, too. Banks foreclose on millions of homes, making millions of families homeless. That’s not illegal. We throw out 40 percent of all food. That’s not illegal.

Illegal: Living off the grid. In most areas of our “Land of the Free,” there are a myriad of regulations designed to make it nearly impossible to live off the grid. In fact, a lot of states consider living off the grid to be “camping.” And in most places throughout the U.S., it is not legal to camp on your own land for more than two weeks.

Illegal: The crime of secretly filming a slaughterhouse. Yes, in some states people were arrested for filming the abuse of farm animals. Not illegal: abusing farm animals.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/our-criminal-justice-system-serves-to-protect-the-villains/

Other Resources

Link: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart

Harvard University Commencement Speech, June 8, 1978