Difference between revisions of "Preface"

Revision as of 19:33, 6 August 2016

CivicWiki is an odyssey to discover freedom -- to understand what freedom is, what is good about it, why we should want it, why it is important; and to understand how much we can retain personally and how much must be given up to ensure social order. Understanding requires sorting through the concept of rights--what they are and what they aren't--where they start and stop. Developing this understanding is a philosophical and historical pursuit. Part of CivicWiki is devoted to this pursuit.

Perhaps more importantly, CW is also an application of our understanding to the question of how we want our government to behave. Perhaps, most importantly - at least for some of the CW audience - CW is an application of our understanding to debates about the issues that come up in our economic, social, and political lives.

So we have to understand something of its philosophical underpinnings, its social evolution, and the political theory that will ensure it. Then we have to think about the practical effects of all this in terms of government organization and policy as well as social mores.

To those for whom all this 'understanding' stuff is a bit dry and who want simply to get to the arguments, it is very easy to go straight to the issue debates. You'll find the link on the main page.

For now, CivicWiki is a personal odyssey. Here at the beginning, it is the project of one person (though encouraged and supported by others and with the hope that CW attracts a number of others that can write and edit CW articles). So, perhaps a personal statement is in order.

Growing up in the U.S., I believed that I was free. And for the most part that was true, though the truth of that continually changes. I became interested in personal freedom in college, prodded by a friend who had been doing a lot of reading and wanted me to suffer along and discuss. Throughout this, the desire for, and the meaning of freedom seemed sufficiently self-evident to me that I truly did not perceive a lack of a like desire in others that I did not interpret as an absence of self esteem or a desire for power to direct the actions of others. Who among us likes to be told what to do? I essentially became a libertarian and, perhaps consistent with youth, disdained others who were not of like mind. However, the friend I mention presented me with an irritating thought which, to this day, I accepted as truth. He asserted that, though we supported our beliefs with logic, it was our emotional make-up that was the basis of belief -- i.e., none of us are Dr. Spock.

Since then, I have done a lot more reading as well as living. While my fundamental beliefs have not changed since college, my understanding of them has broadened and deepened considerably.

Perhaps more importantly, a more conscious understanding of the implications of my friends assertion has softened my reaction to those who think differently. That I still believe as I did and that those beliefs appear to be at odds with about half of America (at least on the surface), and that the consequences of our differences seem to take on increasing importance, I became interested in better understanding the whole thing -- the philosophical and historical fundamentals, the beginnings and evolution of our government, my own beliefs, the beliefs of others, and how we can at least find enough common ground to communicate civilly and objectively. It is my objective that the CW audience be drawn into a Discovery of Freedom.