Quote:
Originally Posted by pj67coll
Perhaps you should define what is meant by "free society"? The term free societies is bandied about in this thread but it's definition is not clear. Do you mean the modern western world? If so has there ever been a free society prior to this? When does this free society begin in the historical context? Like I said earlier Facism, Nazism, Communism are all reletively modern products of western thought and none of them could remotely be called free. I think there is a clear divide between primitive and modern in terms of the amount of religion in a society and it's level of openness/freedom. I think that's more relevant than marriage or lack thereof itself. Perhaps the comments about agrarian vs industrial socieity is correct but Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Democritus etc were hardly products of an industrial society.
- Peter.
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That's a difficult question to answer. In rough, I'd say it was a society in which the individual takes precedence over the group.
My thoughts in this general direction were spurred by a student who was writing a paper on Epicurus who advocates a strong individualist stand in pursuit of life's goal of a tranquil life free of pain. He is not in favor of sex and family life. The student's response to this (she is of Hispanic Catholic heritage) is that such a choice was not possible for her given her culture's commitment to family life and values. I thought her comments were very insightful, being addressed to the real psychological/sociological options possible in her world.
Socrates is an interesting example of an anti-family values man. Some of his friends criticized him for willingly drinking the hemlock when he had young children he was responsible for. The argument fell on deaf ears.
A free society would be a society in which Emma Goldman would be happy.