Re: <nettime> A country without drug and without any free horizon

[McKenzie Wark <mwark@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>]

Not being Dutch, perhaps i have an idealistic view of the
place, but to me Holland is the part of the world that
gave us Spinoza -- God's democrat. I don't think he could
have arisen out of any other context but Dutch mercantile
democracy. Sure, the democratic party lost and Spinoza
became prudently quiet. But it made him ask one of the
great questions: why do people desire their chains? What
is the appeal of unfreedom? Only Holland, at the time, could
have provided the milieu in which to think this. Reinde
may be right to suggest that there is something boring
about pragmatism. But it can also be a idea in its own
right. And a powerful one. One that leaves the door open
to forms of liberty yet to be invented, by virtue of a
lack of insistence on what form it ought to take.

k
__________________________________________
"We no longer have roots, we have aerials."
http://www.mcs.mq.edu.au/~mwark
 -- McKenzie Wark 
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