Quote:
Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent
None of us are free because we're all interconnected. The actions of one affect us all, we can't choose our situation nor our fate. More freedom for one person means less freedom for another.
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Exactly. This mindset is culturally alien to the myth of "American individualism" -- you can't have "freedom" without also having responsibility. Freedom is not absolute (nor is responsibility for others) but there is a balance between the two that must be made.
But when people don't want to acknowledge that or bother with the shades of nuance, people will do anything to justify narcissism, lack of empathy and good old fashioned selfishness.
This is called "common sense" in Europe, Australia & New Zealand, but in America that is the heresy of being "unamerican."
America
can and
should do better than that.
~ josh
p.s. BTW, I'm fond of Beckett too...