At first I thought to write the comment myself, but quickly realized that there was too much text. Therefore, I will formulate a separate text.
Gentlemen, we are engineers. Almost scientists. People who are accustomed to reasoning on logic and objective criteria. Well, for example, please tell me - well, what universal definition of the concept of "freedom" will withstand this charming maxim of "no freedom to the enemies of freedom"? This is a pure attempt to assign the concept of freedom to yourself. And it cannot belong to anyone.
And before minus me, please read my little discourse on the topic “what is freedom”. This essay does not claim to be either novelty or revolutionary. It is intended only to slightly lower the degree of aggression in society, which is near and dear to me. And make people think. First of all, about other people.
So, a person has a thing that I would call "fundamental desire." The point is that a person wants to live "the way he wants." That is, he wants the world around him (like him, a person, a place in this world) to correspond to his ideas about how this world should be. And this is a natural universal desire of any mind. It creates the main motivation to change the world “for the better”.
It is this desire that shapes democracy. And dictatorship. And in general, all methods of social organization. And this is also more or less obvious, but it is interesting to trace exactly how this happens.
Let's conduct, so to speak, a thought experiment. Let's take a person, give him a "serum of truth" and ask a question: how would he like to live? What does his ideal world look like?
# 1.If we take a savage from an undeveloped African tribe, we are most likely to see him covered in military glory and leading his tribe. The most delicious pieces of meat and fruits will be offered to him by naked "priestesses" and all that jazz. This would normally be a picture of a dominant primate. The rest of the people around will be his slaves. He will see the whole meaning of their life in serving him.
# 2.If we take a medieval peasant, he will most likely see himself as a lord. The people around him still serve him personally, but he already understands that his, lord's, welfare directly depends on how high the welfare of his servants is. If the peasants are rich and well fed, then the lord will get more - both gold, and overseas food, and (may the defenders of women forgive me) juicy ruddy peasant girls as concubines (well, or as it should be called in the culture from which this peasant came) ... In this fantasy he will be above everyone else, but his servants already live a little for themselves.
Number 3.If we take some "fiery fighter" for something, an ardent activist, we will see a world in which there is a place not only for him, but for all his henchmen. They are strong there, their will is taken into account above all else, the rest are one rank lower, of course. And they serve them, the victors. This fantasy is completely natural. Let's take a Bolshevik communist from the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century - we will see the victorious communists, "from each according to their ability", dispossessed "rich", that's all (yes, historians will forgive me for this "collective image", I deliberately do not focus on on the details, the general principle is much more important to me). Take an "ultra-radical feminist," and in her dreams we read the society of "Amazons" where men serve women.In each case, here we will see a significant part of society dominating over everything else.
No. 4. Take an ardent patriot of some country - in his mind, his "Motherland" (that's just the way, with a capital letter) dominates the whole world, can show "Kuzkin's mother" to everyone else, or his "Uncle Sam" severely threatens his whole finger (I'm not talking about Russia and not about the United States, of course, or rather, not only about them. But these metaphors in Russian are straightforwardly asking for themselves). One country (especially if its population is the same as in China) is already a very large number of people, a noticeable part of all humanity.
No. 5.It would be interesting to conduct this test on someone from the humanities of the Renaissance (humanitarians are in a broad sense, these are people who think about other people and their fate professionally) - that is, people who saw the meaning of their lives in creating art objects for of all Humanity. Those who thought about how to make the life of all people on Earth more cozy, comfortable and healthy. Although I believe that, unlike most of those listed above, these comrades were not at all shy about their true desires and expressed them at every opportunity. So the experiment on them can, in a sense, be considered successful and long ago.
I think there are enough examples.
Let me draw your attention to the general principle. In each of the proposed models there is a certain group of people, which includes the main character and, possibly, a number of his associates. In No. 1 it will be a very small group - only himself, his beloved women and children. Family. In number 2 there is a little nobility - close vassals and their servants. The will extends to someone who has no direct relationship / love relationship. In # 3, we see a "class victory" - that is, we take a group of people who agree with the ideology (or fit in origin). In No. 4, we get a territorial and cultural victory of one state. And only in No. 5 we have the hope to observe (if we are lucky) "the victory of all mankind."
And now I’ll make a feint, in which I suggest you believe. Every society has citizens of all five varieties represented. And, assuming that there is no strong correlation between worldview and, say, well-being, mentally create a society of different people of all types and let them develop actively. It would be a very interesting experiment. Even now, I'm already mentally trying to come up with a mate. a model of this to conduct it on a computer. It is a pity, the data is not enough ...
But the most interesting thing will happen when one of the participants in the experiment is given the right to choose the government.
No. 1 will strive for power with all his might, because he knows that the only way to be happy is to own everything.
# 2will strive either to the throne, or, at least, to its foot. Kissing the feet of the master can also exist well.
No. 3 will see society more complicated, he will help the authorities to fight their ideological enemies. And in power to promote not only yourself, but also comrades-in-arms in the struggle. By the way, the family may not even be one of them ...
No. 4 doesn't care who will be in power. He will take up arms to expand the country's borders as much as possible. A power that does not seek geopolitical domination, this character will be considered treacherous, "weak." Any other will suit him.
But to imagine in power number 5- a difficult task for me. Unless, Mahatma Gandhi, and even then - with reservations ... There are very few such people, each of them strives to do his own thing, everyone knows for sure that getting into the struggle for power is a thankless and dirty business (at least until then, while the first four categories are actively climbing into power). Alas. I personally know clearly more people claiming to belong to this group than I observe them among the leaders of states known to me.
In general, the cast types are sorted in order of decreasing efficiency. For # 1, for example, absolute power is a practically necessary condition for survival, he is the most motivated. And No. 4 will almost not rush to power. He is more important than birch trees by the river ... Well, or palm trees by the sea.
And you yourself understand that the level of social culture or, if you like, "humanity"on the contrary, it grows in the order of my proposed numbering. Because it is in this order that the number of people grows who do not suffer from the possible power of a given individual.
And now - finally - about freedom. Each person sees the concept of freedom in his own way. No. 1 is free only on the throne, No. 2 is near the throne, No. 3 is victorious in the class war, and so on. Everyone to the question "are you free?" will match your fantasy with reality and conduct a simple conformity assessment.
Hence, by the way, for example, the philosophical dichotomy about the slave and the tyrant - this is the same person! A tyrant is by definition a slave who has gained power. Because a courtier who has received power will strive to create courtiers for himself, and not at all slaves.
And now, gentlemen, who wrote "no freedom to the enemies of freedom", ask yourself a question: what did you actually mean?
A truly free society will only come from people who value the freedom of others. Those who will not create slaves, even from their opponents. And for the realization of such a society, there is a simple principle in which, alas, most Russians were disappointed without ever having tasted it. The supremacy of the universal law over the individual.
Only a system of universal rules, accepted by society and changed only by the will of the majority, can create at least relative freedom for everyone. Rather, she can create such a level of freedom for everyone, which will not affect the freedom of others.... This is an unstable balance that must be maintained by the entire society as a whole. Otherwise it will fall apart. The habit of every person to participate in maintaining this balance - a natural evolution of the citizen's desire to gain power - guarantees the very “mythical” democracy in which it has now become unfashionable to believe. The most successful winners in civil society should not even allow it to "fall" in their direction (for example, the ever-memorable Bill Gates, having become fabulously rich, gives a fair amount of his wealth to support those who are less fortunate, and he does it strictly voluntarily).
Yes, you have to pay for freedom. And the pay is, first of all, spiritual. For example, individuals # 1 and # 2 need to abandon their "plans for the throne." Because there is no throne. It shouldn't be. The law cannot give the throne to everyone, only a chamber pot.
Let me suggest a definition.
Freedom is the ability of a person to satisfy his desires in such a way as not to infringe on the freedom of other people.
The definition is tricky, recursive. This is done on purpose so that any person who seeks to apply it, first think about others and their idea of freedom. Citizens from category # 1 will definitely not understand ...
And now - a little about China, about which there was an article. And about his Internet.
Unfortunately, there are always more people type 1 and 2 than everyone else. And each of them wants to get the sole power, create a throne for himself and sit on it. The rest of society for such people is just a detail of the landscape. And that is why the only way to protect people “below” from tyranny and monarchy is to prevent one-man rule. Never. And no one.
This principle is universal. If the club - then only a vote for the chairman, or better - the council of chairmen. If a company - then a board of directors (I work in one of these, she recently turned 50, during which she has been a constant leader in the industry). If the state is the parliament.
And if it is a computer network, then all the nodes and it should be as equal as possible. Otherwise, one person of type 1 or 2, seizing power on the server, will instantly create his own tyranny and take away freedom from everyone. Even the Internet that exists today does not quite meet this simple criterion. WeChat is nothing to talk about. As well as, by the way, like Facebook, VK or, say, everyone's favorite Telegram here.
So the author of the original article, in my opinion, has the moral right to defend whatever he wants - comfort in China, well-being, no inflation, security and public peace, or anything else that he undoubtedly knows better than I.
The only place where my opinion is radically at odds with his point of view is that a network based on a single uncontested proprietary application cannot be free by definition. This follows from the completely objective principles that I tried to illustrate above in the text, and, in my opinion, is beyond doubt.
And comrades shouting “no freedom to the enemies of freedom” should, as I see it, add a disclaimer “as we see it for ourselves”... Because all sorts of events that have taken place around the world in the past few months have too clearly and vividly demonstrated what this logic leads to. And, it seems to me, humanity has already eaten its fill.