Many advocates of freedom and voluntaryism revel in the philosophical theory of self ownership. What they fail to recognize is the practical application of self ownership. How does this translate into property ownership beyond one's self?
These ideas are not mutually exclusive. They are hand in hand. They walk the same path of thought progression as one must give birth to a portion of the other, even though both are inherent in terms of application and theory.
So what does this mean?
It means that if one is willing to invest the time to understand, then one will inevitably conclude:
-One cannot ever wholly give up his or her body as he or she will forever be required to operate it to refine his or her time, intellect, and labor;
-And one must always refine their time, intellect, and labor to provide for themselves lest another refines their own time, intellect, and labor making a claim through application over another.
And it is the acceptance of one of these and rejection or failure to acknowledge the other which allows all transgressions of 3rd party proclaimed noble interlopers; i.e. government and its variations of imposed taxation and unwarranted coercion. These two concepts work hand in hand with one another. Yet so many advocates of self ownership do not seem to recognize this. Purely logical minds will claim the former, while those with less of an understanding of theory will often claim the latter. And both will claim one path is superior to the other because of any number of reasons.
Both are correct. Both also fail to understand their positions with greater clarity beyond using words that sound terrific but are in fact hollow rhetoric because of a lack of comprehension. That lack of comprehension leads to angst and feeling challenged to not make mistakes when asked innocently for a little more clarity. So both stop to marvel and proclaim how those who need explanation of what is 'right versus wrong' or can’t simply look something up in a reference material are what is the matter with the world and why it is falling apart. And this is how the fighting begins for advocates of government, dissenters of government, and everything in between concerning any ideology that intervenes into the lives of others. Assumptions are made to belittle and dehumanize those whom are different, though not necessarily opposing in ideology. As is the case with the examples of self ownership I’ve presented.
So many people are on the same side, yet squabble over details of which path of thought progression is superior without recognizing that everyone learns differently. A different path of thought progression only matters when the means are in contradiction to the goal; while transparent path of thought progression is generally only important when trying to convey such ideas to communicate. And guess what?
Humanity’s current state of existence has been built upon its successes and failure in communication. Clarity is important. So is consistency. And far more often than not we as a species, built upon communication and cognitive abilities, fail at one, the other, or both at times leaving us to make a choice.
Do we defend our pride to avoid social ostracism for being wrong, which is considered a weakness as a species built upon intelligence and innovation, or admit defeat, embrace the lesson, and grow from it doing our best to handle the negative and often hostile ridicule of the naysayers and social peer pressure clinging minds? And the choices made to satisfy the options we must decide upon are what encourage the stagnant acceptance of an ideology as simply 'inherent,' 'axiomatic,' or even 'self-evident' by so many. An intellectual road block built of external and internal emotional hostility is the culprit for this stagnation.
To get past this often requires the sacrifice of acceptance, typically by family first, then friends, and even followers on social media. It is so much easier and faster to become an observer of life in solitude since we can control the volume of everyone speaking. This allows us to refine our thinking and notice other points of information while indentifying life minded individuals hiding in a universe of noise. And yes, it is possible to find others quiet like ourselves just as it is possible to find a planet around a distant star by the gravitational pull on light.
However, there is a greater sacrifice required. This one is of personal time and devotion invested in one's future comprehension. It is absolutely about self perseverance and the desire for vindication of understanding emotional sentiment communicated into a transparent thought progression that only you will see immediately. It is the refinement of this thought process to ever more simplistic terms which allows it to be understood and employed and built upon by others in time.
This kind of perseverance is about seeking truth without regard for what others think of you since it is a default of Humanity, and likely all reason capable and sentiment beings, to fear what they do not understand initially. And this action results many times in a combination of seeking solitude and changing one’s life choices to varying degrees. These can range from 100% solitude and life choice changes to any percentage of one or the other being at least 1%. We all make changes even if we don't realize it. Some are more obvious while others are only noticeable over decades of reflection.
So to offer a little more clarity on what the entire sentiment of this article is about, please read just a little further.
Change is inevitable if we want to continue growing. And growth is important to our futures as a species and as individuals. It is okay to be a stepping stone of ideology for a while. But if we remain the same mind at 80 years of age, 60, and 40 as we were at 20, what have we learned? How much have we grown? And how much of an impact can we make when we dismiss something because we have proclaimed to understand it fully while never recognizing the difficulty and importance of communication and its impact on our current lifestyles?
Our goal as freedom minded individuals should be to focus on always growing our base of knowledge and comprehension so that we may transform this into wisdom as we age and pass it on. This will allow us to make the struggles of others that much easier while reminding them to make time to understand the purpose of hand signals in relation to clay tablets, which led to papyrus scrolls and hemp and wood pulp paper, and eventually to telegraph wires and radio to land line phones and smart phones with internet access. And lastly, the wisdom we acquire for making such self investments in our future comprehension is the ability to explain all of this and showcase the ideas and refinements in thinking and technology which accompanied each and every advancement in communication abilities throughout Humanity's history.
But just to be certain, this is about a quote by John Adams in a letter to his wife, Abigail on the 12th of may, 1780.
“…I must study politics and war, that our sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”
So hopefully, as you can now see the problem is in fact a human problem. This is not limited to advocates of government or dissenters of government. This is an obstacle all minds must overcome, often multiple times throughout their lives. I simply chose to highlight a common issue that is rarely recognized in the current liberty movements; one in which so many advocates of government justify as a reason to ignore their challengers for. But it is also one in which advocates of peaceful anarchism and voluntaryism should embrace as it is the greatest positive invest one can make in the future of their own comprehension skills.
At last this article is coming to a close. Allow me to share with you one of my favorite quotes. This is by a man I have deeply respected and admired in his darkest times and most jovial alike.
“My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them nor indisposed me to serve them; nor, in spite of the failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.”
I will not reveal his name. He is hated and he is loved, both by people who never took the time to research his character and by those who did with the works of others truthfully and otherwise alike.
-JLD
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