Apr 08 2009
No Guarantees of Liberty in Life – Make the Most of What You Have
Some people have argued to me that life without freedom is not worth living, in part because one’s consciousness can thrive under liberty in a qualitatively different (and better) way than it can under unfreedom. I agree that the individual’s consciousness thrives better under liberty than under non-liberty, but there is also no natural law guaranteeing that one’s consciousness must thrive or that one must have anything desirable at all – including liberty or life itself. I will take everything desirable that I can get, and I do not expect that the cosmos must give me some particular kind of life or standard of living. Rather, I will use any existing state I am in (including a state of unfreedom) to get to a better state – with more liberty, prosperity, and happiness. To give up on any efforts at improvement simply because one finds the initial state of affairs undesirable is to me akin to the attitude of a person who starves himself to death because he cannot access the gourmet foods to which he has been accustomed. Gourmet foods are great, but I will eat gruel if it is my only option for the time being.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II
