A first reaction to Timothy Snyder’s new book “On Freedom”

As a first reaction to Timothy  Snyder’s new book “On Freedom” (pub. Vintage Digital, 19 September 2024, ISBN 978-1-529-92927-0; website, NPR review, goodreads; Penguin, Kobo, Apple books, Amazon), it is wonderful to read someone who has such a common sense view on matters that are so clear - such as the absurdity of US thinking on economic matters, democracy, and freedom.

 

 

PS - to illustrate the value of this book further, here are a few quotes (and I am still only part way through it): 

“Freedom is not just an absence of evil but a presence of good.” 

“Liberty begins with de-occupying our minds from the wrong ideas. And there are right and wrong ideas.” 

“Noting a difference between the rhetoric of the oppressors and the oppressed, the dissident Eritrean poet Y. F. Mebrahtu reports that “they talk about the country, we talk about the people.”” 

“We enable freedom not by rejecting government, but by affirming freedom as the guide to good government.” 

“Those who believe themselves free because they dominate others define freedom negatively, as the absence of government, because only a government could emancipate the slaves or enfranchise the women.”

Please consider buying and reading it. 

 

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/