POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Social Mobility, Consumerism, Unbridled
19 Nov 2012
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Question: how should free people govern themselves? i. e if not by king, queen, ruler etc. Modern conception of freedom: freed from being told what to do; essentially to do as we please. Participatory: conception of what it meant to participate in public life, citizens wanted to be part of a greater public, those who did not participate were not participating in active citizenship. Direct: did not have people representing you, you represented yourself directly. Public not private liberty : freedom was a collective, not an individual notion, connected to direct participation in public life. Freedom is collective: dependent upon a class of people who didn"t engage in commerce or even work. Slaves were employed to take care of trivial day to day chores that allowed the greeks to actively participate in the government and be involved in commerce. The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others.
