One of the paradoxes of the last twenty years is that we are yearning to create an economically freer society without fundamentally subscribing to the foundations of freedom itself. We want to be able to dream, to achieve, to make material progress, and to live comfortably, but so far we have not yet accepted that dreams can be very different, even non-conformist, and that they can challenge many of the comfort zones of society. The usual way of reconciling this to ourselves is to say that we can get to all that later. For now we must focus on prosperity, and ideas of free thinking, liberalism, etc. can be taken up once there is a degree of security first. But there is an inherent tension in this. An open society is more inclusive, more encouraging of dreams, and more able to learn through sharing. But thats not what we are betting on. Its worth thinking about this from time to time. Conventional, conformist ideas of development have limited value. They teach us to go through the same formal systems of society that are deeply linked to the problems themselves. It is difficult to solve problems within the logic that created them.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 13:10:08 +0000
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