The price of freedom?
I am a bit tired hearing, after the attacks in London, that the invasion of our civil liberties (in the form of retention of traffic data) is the “price of freedom”. Surelly the true price of freedom, even from the point of view of liberal ideology is to just accept that, in a liberal democracy, there are limits to how easily the state can catch terrorists. At the end of the day the true price of “freedom” is to take the risk of living in such a context, even if the price could be high. As Zizek, points out in “Welcome to the desert of the real” (written a year after 9/11):
What makes life ‘worth living’ is the very excess of life: the awareness that there is something for which one is ready to risk one’s life (we may call this excess ‘freedom’, ‘honour’, ‘dignity’, ‘autonomy’, etc.). Only when we are ready to take this risk we are really alive.
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I’m not sure, though, that what Zizek has in mind is the grey lumpy burden of being forced to tread capitalism’s water in potentially perillous circumstances (i.e. travelling to work in London). It wasn’t ‘freedom’ or ‘dignity’ you saw on Friday, it was people not being allowed to take a day off.
Comment by infinite thought @ 7/13/2005 12:30 pm
Agreed. I allowed myself a wry smile when whoever-it-was told us that we should show that “London was open for business” - oh, well, so long as we’re open for business, that’s the important thing.
Comment by Stefan @ 7/13/2005 1:32 pm
Stef - I never had you down as an anti capitailst. What could be a greater symbol of humananity being untroubled than the exchange of goods, services and capital for mutual benefit?
Inf - I’m sorry you didn’t get a day off work. Next time, eh?
Comment by Marty @ 7/15/2005 2:37 pm