#no taxation without representation or whatever

[ophiuchus11]

ITS THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY ‼️‼️‼️

[ace-ace-ace-ace]

idk man.. i pay taxes and contribute to the economy.. i kinda feel like i should legally be allowed to vote..

[anyroads]

Also whatever you think of the US, it sure says a lot about this new administration that for all their big patriotic talk and jizzing themselves over the founding fathers while claiming only they know their true intentions, going from the country's foundational slogan of "no taxation without representation" to openly stating at an inauguration the intention to tax other countries (how???) is a choice. And yeah, my first thought in response to how hypocritical this is was also "I think Puerto Rico would like a word" but the red flag here is saying this intention out loud at an inauguration. Not sliding it into policies later or dressing it up in bullshit and flowery language, but just saying point blank, we want to tax other countries to get their money. We plan to enact taxation without representation. Which, in a way, would be a weirdly equalizing move if you're comparing say, Sweden and an ex-con who can't vote?

And most of the country won't even have flagged it because they're lucky if they went to a school where their textbooks had all their pages and were less than 30 years old.

[tymime]

I honestly think that if you have intelligent, well-educated parents (like mine) to guide you, you could replace public school almost entirely with television.

Public education kinda sucks. They might tell you some vague outline of the Revolutionary War, like mentioning George Washington and Ben Franklin and Paul Revere, and something about "taxation without representation", whatever that means. What they don't tell you is all the stuff behind it, like the French philosophers and other social commentators who inspired the Founding Fathers, the intense excitement of the violent bloody battles, Ben Franklin's revolutions in newspapers, the idealism, the internal debates, the way King George III went insane.

They might mention how ancient Egypt had mummies and pyramids, and some gods like Anubis and Ra, but never mention the complex mythology, the way every pharaoh tried to gaslight the populace into thinking his version of religion was the correct one, and radicals like Akhenaten and Hatshepsut.

You could learn more about history from PBS and YouTube documentaries than you could in elementary and middle school. I learned more about science from Bill Nye the Science Guy than at a class. I've learned more about practical math from Cyberchase than I ever did in school.

The trick, of course, is to fact-check stuff you watch, especially on YouTube. If you use Wikipedia, check the citations and see if they're a reliable source.

It actually makes me worry about teachers' jobs, especially when it comes to music. I've learned more about music theory and playing guitar from YouTube than I ever did in the approx. 5 years I took guitar classes- although admittedly I wasn't very ambituous back then.

[butchdazai]

unironically i think permanent residents everywhere should be able to vote. what happened to "no taxation without representation" or whatever they said in the us revolution

[5ducksinatrenchcoat]

everything i know about the american war of independence -

Ok so Britain regulated the colonies' trade so they could only trade with Britain and its colonies and all imports had to go through Britain where customs duties went to the crown. These laws were known as the Navigation Acts.

In 1765, England introduced the Stamp Act, which added taxes on a bunch of goods (including stamps and tea)

People in the colonies were angry about "taxation without representation" (because they didn't have representatives in Parliament), so riots and boycotts broke out.

These riots included the Boston Tea Party, where colonists dumped a bunch of tea in the Boston Harbour. After this, taxation doubled down with the Intolerable Acts.

Fighting broke out between the colonies and Britain.

HOW DID THEY WIN? The colonies had the home advantage and a passionate sense of nationalism. They had also already experienced the right to govern themselves a little (unlike the other British colonies), so they wanted more. They used guerilla warfare and support from France.

The colonies won. They got freedom of speech and reformed taxes.

Important people: Thomas Paine, who spread pamphlets called "Common Sense" to spread the ideas of the revolution, Thomas Jefferson, who largely drafted the Declaration of Independence (which explains reason for separation from Britain), and George Washington, a general who led important victories and united the people to a common cause.

France and Spain sent support to the colonies to beat Britain.

LOYALISTS: They were seen as traitors after the war, so they didn't stick around. They came to Canada to avoid getting tar and feathered. This shifted the Canadian government's focus - they had had a French majority and needed to make concessions to keep them happy, but now they had an English majority so they could do whatever they wanted (read- not a good thing for French Canadians)

American War of Independence is known as "the shot heard around the world" because it was the first fight for a country to be independent. Also Britain got beaten by its colony.

[tumblingxelian]

She speaks her truth, so yeah frankly I can totally see it and would find it really fun to explore. Then again I also love making Enid sort of the "Politically well informed, but grounded" character of the cast.

Not the only one who knows stuff but definitely one of the one's who both knows a lot of "Common politics" from listening to the adults around her talk about how Outcasts experience taxation without representation and is generally keyed into social discourse and debates on representation, or microaggressions and so on.

Some potential examples of either titles of lines:

"OMG, the whole, "The Fangs have been here for decades" thing is a fucking joke guys! There's nothing inherently imbalanced about two high schoolers necking in the library. In front of my meat platter though? I mean come on, I'm single and trying to eat!"

"The Smile of a Lycan - Say what you will about Jericho and Nevermore, I certainly have at different times. But at least here, I can show my fangs without being, at best, screamed at, attacked and arrested. That's right, California still has the Fangs = Threat bylaws, what century is this!?"

"Look, I'm not gonna pretend to have all the answers, I'm literally 15, but like. The second someone starts pulling that "Well are they really an Outcast if they can pass?" BS, they need to be shut down hard. We're only still here today cos we pulled together!"

"Bianca Barclay, Nevermore's Woman of Mystery - My fellow readers and Sirens especially will know that having last names is very uncommon in Siren culture. (This statement was cleared by several Siren editors, thanks you's!) Usually only done by those very integrated to human/Normie society or in auspicious positions. Yet the Barclay name appears nowhere I can find. Where did she come from, where will she go, this mystery woman who enrolled and soared tot he top of every class?"

"Multiple Furs in detention today (Yo, what up, I'm in the slammer jammer,) for "Hunting without a permit" or whatever. Like its our fault something's driving animals from the woods and there's not enough red meat; all cos some humans sabotaged the delivery vans!"

"Righteous Retribution or Revenge? - With all the rumor's swirling around our new transfer student, some started by her very own lips, I did some more poking around and it seems she's just very edgy. Cos I was able to have a call with her little brother who is is supes adorbs and also very polite. Turns out she only got slapped with the punishment she did cos a whole team of 18 year old's had been perpetually abusing a 12 year old and the school refused to act. Whatever else you wanna say about her, the new girls heart was in the right place."

"Not naming names, but its very funny to see a guy whose personality makes him like a 3 at best drop one 10 to go after another 10 and see his first attempt at flirting get literally smacked into oblivion. Guess all that money can't buy rizz."

"Outreach Day is a farce - If there's one thing I think everyone at Nevermore agrees with except somehow the adults is that Outreach Day is an exercise in emotional abuse. I'm half glad I didn't get to do that stupid dance, cos they never clap for us anyway. Just feels like outreach should involve both sides offering a hand, not just ours getting burned, (LOL, topical burn)."

"Does no one care how fucking offensive all those "Hyena Girl" jokes are? Like, fuck you, go hang out with Normies if you love their prejudices so much! This is why no Bultungin ever visit us, they stay in Kanem where it doesn't suck and gender roles aren't influenced by post colonial crap!"

i had a dream about fucking… vampire discourse on tumblr like;

“reminder that blood sucker is a slur”

“vamp-born-vamps are valid if u got bitten later in life you’re not part of the vamp community” 

“support vamps who drink human blood, support vamps who drink animal blood, support vamps who drink animal and human blood”

[starborn15]

So I see a lot of videos of people sharing Animal Farm and maybe that’s just me but.

Overwhelmingly Animal Farm draws from communism — specific that of Russia but if you look deeper at it you can see pieces of it in every society.

Italy, Germany, and the United States.

Because the underlying theme isn’t actually communism, or facism, or whatever you want to associate it with (typically the political part you’re opposing.)

Animal farm is about corruption and control.

(Just like 1984.)

The pigs also hate the farmer and feel his maltreatment (a king?) and so the pigs (being the “smartest” animals on the farm give the other animals the courage to rise up against their oppressor. Once the pigs have power they do good…for a while until corruption, and greed and control sneak its way into the farm because “they’re the smartest why shouldn’t they lead?”

The end of seeing the pigs dressed as men, walking on two legs is the epitome of corruption and that no one government is EVER going to be for the people because once you hand over power to a group of people they often become what they fought against.

So ya….

As America turns into a country run by corporations and the wealthy you have to think..

What was “taxation without representation!” And dumping the tea into the Boston harbor…what did we fight for? For this? Nah…I don’t think so.

[towertea]

it’s so unfair that i have to pay taxes from my internship even though im not old enough to vote. whatever happened to no taxation without representation??

[chestercopperpotz]

America when King George³ tried it

[saritasoyyo]

People of the Internet it's time to flip the script:

NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!!!

Proposals:

You must pay a minimum tax rate of 35% of all forms of income, including capital gains, in order to run for or hold any electable or politically appointed federal position. All assets must be taxed at the minimum level of value under both federal and state of residence laws. Evidence of tax avoidance of any kind is disqualifying and must be arbitrated by--x office for federal appointees and state attorney's general for federal elected officials. Complete tax documentation must be made public for the period of 10 years prior to running for office or from proposed appointment. Tax documentation will remain public for 10 years after close of the elected or appointed term.

All persons in elected or appointed position within the federal government must publicly disclose all assets held in the 10 years prior to standing for election or appointment and throughout the time they hold the elected or appointed position. Once elected or appointed all assets must be publicly disclosed for 10 years after the end of their elected or appointed position.

No elected or appointed official may receive gifts in cash or in kind totaling a value of $5000 or above per year. All gifts achieving a total valuing of $5000 or above given to any first or second degree family member, including step children and in-laws, must be disclosed privately to your branch's office of (whatever we're making the office of stopping public corruption) .

Basically making the rules governing anti-corruption for regular federal employees way tougher and way more public for anyone elected or appointed. As it should be, it's a higher bar with more opportunities for corrupt behaviors. Quid Pro Quo is no longer the only standard. And this would include the Supreme Court--they don't get to make their own rules about financial disclosures & gifts anymore. It's in the Constitution Also I'm deliberately not stopping anyone from becoming a lobbyist. I actually think we want to let people do that. I just think we want to make them make everything financial that happens as a lobbyist public. If being rich is so beneficial, superior, & morally neutral, then nobody should have a problem disclosing their salaries, benefit structures, bonuses, annuities, stocks & investments, and gifts. Right? That's what I thought.

Y'all I want a New Constitutional Convention and I've got list of our new amendments I want:

ERA

Presidential Election by National Popular Vote/Kill the Electoral College

Modernizing Public Service Corruption Prevention/Public Disclosure of Assets & Taxes for Federal Offices & Officials

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (defined as any human being under age 18): the right to a name and nationality; freedom of speech and thought; access to healthcare and education; and freedom from exploitation, torture, and abuse.

[fuckyeahtx]

Well, this is utterly fucked. Do not let these fuckers take away your voices, your votes, your ability to impact the lives of you and your loved ones now and into the future.

Contact your local representatives. Email, call, carrier pigeon, flock of chickens, let a burro names Pandora loose in the corridors of power with a sandwich board saying "no taxation without representation," whatever works for you.

Don't let these heartless, two faced, cumstains do this to our Texas.

[werewolfetone]

Thinking about the No Taxation Without Representation slogan and thinking. how would that have worked. like let's say there's an alternate universe where in the 1770s the government was like "okay Americans, you can have representation in Parliament," how would the mp for Boston or whatever have communicated with the people on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. because like I understand letters etc but when it comes to politics it's really not going to work for the newest news from your constituents be 3+ months old

[crossedwithblue]

Whatever happened to 'no taxation without representation'?

[didanawisgi]

This article was published online on February 10, 2021.

“Massachusetts abolished enslavement before the Treaty of Paris brought an end to the American Revolution, in 1783. The state constitution, adopted in 1780 and drafted by John Adams, follows the Declaration of Independence in proclaiming that all “men are born free and equal.” In this statement Adams followed not only the Declaration but also a 1764 pamphlet by the Boston lawyer James Otis, who theorized about and popularized the familiar idea of “no taxation without representation” and also unequivocally asserted human equality. “The Colonists,” he wrote, “are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.” In 1783, on the basis of the “free and equal” clause in the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, the state’s chief justice, William Cushing, ruled enslavement unconstitutional in a case that one Quock Walker had brought against his enslaver, Nathaniel Jennison.

Many of us who live in Massachusetts know the basic outlines of this story and the early role the state played in standing against enslavement. But told in this traditional way, the story leaves out another transformative figure: Prince Hall, a free African American and a contemporary of John Adams. From his formal acquisition of freedom, in 1770, until his death, in 1807, Hall helped forge an activist Black community in Boston while elevating the cause of abolition to new prominence. Hall was the first American to publicly use the language of the Declaration of Independence for a political purpose other than justifying war against Britain. In January 1777, just six months after the promulgation of the Declaration and nearly three years before Adams drafted the state constitution, Hall submitted a petition to the Massachusetts legislature (or General Court, as it is styled) requesting emancipation, invoking the resonant phrases and founding truths of the Declaration itself.

Here is what he wrote (I’ve put the echoes of the Declaration of Independence in italics):

The petition of A Great Number of Blackes detained in a State of Slavery in the Bowels of a free & christian Country Humbly shuwith that your Petitioners Apprehend that Thay have in Common with all other men a Natural and Unaliable Right to that freedom which the Grat — Parent of the Unavese hath Bestowed equalley on all menkind and which they have Never forfuted by Any Compact or Agreement whatever — but thay wher Unjustly Dragged by the hand of cruel Power from their Derest frinds and sum of them Even torn from the Embraces of their tender Parents — from A popolous Plasant And plentiful cuntry And in Violation of Laws of Nature and off NationsAnd in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity Brough hear Either to Be sold Like Beast of Burthen & Like them Condemnd to Slavery for Life.

In this passage, Hall invokes the core concepts of social-contract theory, which grounded the American Revolution, to argue for an extension of the claim to equal rights to those who were enslaved. He acknowledged and adopted the intellectual framework of the new political arrangements, but also pointedly called out the original sin of enslavement itself.

Hall’s memory was vigorously kept alive by members and archivists of the Masonic lodge he founded, and his name can be found in historical references. But his life has attracted fresh attention in recent years from scholars and community leaders, both because he deserves to be widely known and celebrated and because inserting his story into the tale of the country’s founding exemplifies the promise of an integrated way of studying and teaching history. It’s hard enough to shine new light on an African American figure who has been long in the shadows, one who in important ways should be considered an American Founder. It can prove far more difficult to trace an individual’s “relationship tree” and come to understand that person, in a granular and even cinematic way, in the full context of his or her own society: family, school, church, civic organizations, commerce, government. Doing so—especially for figures and communities that have been overlooked—gives us a chance to tell a whole story, to weave together multiple perspectives on the events of our political founding into a single, joined tale. It also provides an opportunity to draw out and emphasize the agency of people who experienced oppression and domination. In the case of Prince Hall, the process of historical reconstruction is still under way.

When I was a girl, I used to ask what there was to know about the experience of being enslaved—and was told by kind and well-meaning teachers that, sadly, the lack of records made the question impossible to answer. In fact, the records were there; we just hadn’t found them yet. Historical evidence often turns up only when one starts to look for it. And history won’t answer questions until one thinks to ask them.

John Adams and Prince Hall would have passed each other on the streets of Boston. They almost certainly were aware of each other. Hall was no minor figure, though his early days and family life are shrouded in some mystery. Probably he was born in Boston in 1735 (not in England or Barbados, as some have suggested). It is possible that he lived for a period as a freeman before he was formally emancipated. He may have been one of the thousands of African Americans who fought in the Continental Army; his son, Primus, certainly was. As a freeman, Hall became for a time a leatherworker, passed through a period of poverty, and then ultimately ran a shop, from which he sold, among other things, his own writings advocating for African American causes. Probably he was not married to every one of the five women in Boston who were married to someone named Prince Hall in the years between 1763 and 1804, but he may have been. Whether he was married to Primus’s mother, a woman named Delia, is also unclear. Between 1780 and 1801, the city’s tax collectors found their way to some 1,184 different Black taxpayers. Prince Hall and his son appear in those tax records for 15 of those 21 years, giving them the longest period of recorded residence in the city of any Black person we know about in that era. The DePaul University historian Chernoh M. Sesay Jr.’s excellent dissertation, completed in 2006, provides the most thorough and rigorously analyzed academic review of Hall’s biography that is currently available. (The dissertation, which I have drawn on here, has not yet been published in full, but I hope it will be.)

Hall was a relentless petitioner, undaunted by setbacks. When Hall submitted his 1777 petition, co-signed by seven other free Black men, to the Massachusetts legislature, he was building on the efforts of other African Americans in the state to abolish enslavement. In 1773 and 1774, African Americans from Bristol and Worcester Counties as well as Boston and its neighboring towns put forward six known petitions and likely more to this end. Hall led the formation of the first Black Masonic lodge in the Americas, and possibly in the world. The purpose of forming the lodge was to provide mutual aid and support and to create an infrastructure for advocacy. Fourteen men joined Hall’s lodge almost surely in 1775, and in the years from then until 1784, records reveal that 51 Black men participated in the lodge. Through the lodge’s history, one can trace a fascinating story of the life of Boston’s free Black community in the final decades of the 18th century.

Why did Hall choose Freemasonry as one of his life’s passions? Alonza Tehuti Evans, a former historian and archivist of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, took up that question in a 2017 lecture. Hall and his fellow lodge members, he explained, recognized that many of the influential people in Boston—and throughout the colonies—were deeply involved in Freemasonry. George Washington is a prominent example, and symbolism that resonates with Masonic meaning adorns the $1 bill to this day. Hall saw entrance into Freemasonry as a pathway to securing influence and a network of supporters.

Hall submitted a petition to the Massachusetts legislature requesting emancipation, invoking the resonant phrases and founding truths of the Declaration of Independence.

In a world without stable passports or identification documents, participation in the order could provide proof of status as a free person. It offered both leverage and legitimacy—as when Prince Hall and members of his lodge, in 1786, offered to raise troops to support the commonwealth in putting down Shays’s Rebellion.

In the winter and spring of 1788, Hall was leading a charge in Boston against enslavers who made a practice of using deception or other means to kidnap free Black people, take them shipboard, and remove them to distant locations, where they would be sold into enslavement. He submitted a petition to the Massachusetts legislature seeking aid—asking legislators to “do us that justice that our present condition requires”—and publicized his petition in newspapers in Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

In the summer of that year, a newspaper circulated an extract of a letter from a prominent white Bostonian who had assisted Hall on this very matter. The unnamed author of the letter reports that he had been visited by a group of free Black men who had been kidnapped in Boston and had recently been emancipated and returned to the city. They were escorted to his house by Hall, and they told the story of their emancipation. One of the men who had been kidnapped was a member of Hall’s Masonic lodge. Carried off to the Caribbean and put on the auction block, the kidnapped men found that the merchant to whom they were being offered was himself a Mason. Mutual recognition of a shared participation in Freemasonry put an end to the transaction and gave them the chance to recover their freedom.

Prince Hall’s work on abolition and its enforcement was just the beginning of a lifetime of advocacy. Disillusioned by how hard it was to secure equal rights for free Black men and women in Boston, he submitted a petition to the Massachusetts legislature seeking funds to assist him and other free Blacks in emigrating to Africa. That same year, he also turned his energies to advocating for resources for public education. Through it all, his Masonic membership proved both instrumental and spiritually valuable.

Founding the lodge had not been easy. Although Hall and his fellows were most likely inducted into Freemasonry in 1775, they were never able to secure a formal charter for their lodge from the other lodges in Massachusetts: Prejudice ran strong. Hall and his fellows had in fact probably been inducted by members of an Irish military lodge, planted in Boston with the British army, who had proved willing to introduce them to the mysteries of the order. Hall’s lodge functioned as an unofficial Masonic society—African Lodge No. 1—but received a formal charter only after a request was sent to England for a warrant. The granting of a charter by the Grand Lodge of England finally arrived in 1787.

In seeking this charter, Hall had written to Masons in England, lamenting that lodges in Boston had not permitted him and his fellows a full charter but had granted a permit only to “walk on St John’s Day and Bury our dead in form which we now enjoy.” Hall wanted full privileges, not momentary sufferance. In this small detail, though, we gain a window into just how important even the first steps toward Masonic privileges were. In the years before 1783 and full abolition of enslavement in Massachusetts, Black people in the state were subjected to intensive surveillance and policing, as enslavers sought to keep their human property from slipping away into the world of free Blacks. Membership in the Masons was like a hall pass—an opportunity to have a parade as a community, to come out and step high, without harassment. That’s what it meant to walk on Saint John’s Day—June 24—and to hold funeral parades for the dead.

Whether that stepping-out day remained June 24 is unclear. As Sesay writes, “Boston blacks, including Prince Hall, first applied to use Faneuil Hall in 1789 to hear an ‘African preacher.’ On February 25, 1789, the Selectmen accepted the application of blacks to use Faneuil Hall for ‘public worship.’ ” By 1820, the walk on Saint John’s Day appears to have become African Independence Day and was celebrated on July 14, Bastille Day, much to the displeasure of at least one newspaper. An unattributed column in the New-England Galaxy and Masonic Magazine complained about the annual parade in recognizably racist tones (the mention of “Wilberforce” at the end is a reference to William Wilberforce, the British campaigner against enslavement):

This is the day on which, for unaccountable reasons or for no reasons at all, the Selectmen of Boston, permit the town to be annually disturbed by a mob of negroes … The streets through which this sable procession passes are a scene of noise and confusion, and always will be as long as the thing is tolerated. Quietness and order can hardly be expected, when five or six hundred negroes, with a band of music, pikes, swords, epaulettes, sashes, cocked hats, and standards, are marching through the principal streets. To crown this scene of farce and mummery, a clergyman is mounted in their pulpit to harangue them on the blessings of independence, and to hold up for their admiration the characters of “Masser Wilberforce and Prince Hall.”

Well after Hall’s death, the days for stepping out continued in Boston—an expression of freedom and the claiming of a rightful place in the polity. The lodge that Hall founded continued too. It is the oldest continuously active African American association in the U.S., with chapters now spread around the country. Its work in support of public education has endured. In the 20th century the Prince Hall Freemasons made significant contributions to the NAACP, in many places hosting the first branches of the organization. In the 1950s alone, the group donated more than $400,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (equivalent to millions of dollars today). Thurgood Marshall was a member.

for all of what we now know to be Prince Hall’s importance, I learned of him only recently. In 2015 the National Archives held a conference about the Declaration of Independence, inspired by my own research on the document. At the conference, another colleague presented a paper on how abolitionists had been the first people to make use of the Declaration for political projects other than the Revolution itself. A few months earlier I had come across the passage from Hall’s 1777 petition that I shared above, and that so beautifully resonates with the Declaration; at that conference, I suddenly learned the important political context in which it fit. I had published a book on the Declaration of Independence—Our Declaration—in 2014, but until the spring of 2015, I had never heard of Hall.

Yet I have been studying African American history since childhood. When I was in high school, my school didn’t do anything to celebrate Black History Month. My father encouraged me to take matters into my own hands and propose to the school that I might curate a weekly exhibit on one of the school’s bulletin boards. The school was obliging. It offered me the one available bulletin board—in a dark corner in the farthest remove of the school’s quads. This was not the result of malice, just of a lack of attention to the stakes. But I was glad to have access to that bulletin board, and I dutifully filled it with pictures of people like Carter G. Woodson and Mary McLeod Bethune and Thurgood Marshall, and with excerpts from their writings.

I am deeply aware of how much historical treasure about Black America is hidden, and have been actively trying to seek it out. While I was on the faculty of the University of Chicago, I helped found the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, a network of archival organizations in Chicago dedicated to connecting “all who seek to document, share, understand and preserve Black experiences.” And while I was at Chicago—somewhat in the spirit of that old bulletin board—I curated an exhibit for the special-collections department of the campus library on the 45 African Americans who’d earned a doctorate at the university prior to 1940—the largest number of doctorates awarded to African Americans up to that time by any institution in the world. Even so, I had not known about Prince Hall.

Having discovered Hall at the ridiculous age of 43, I have since made it a mission to teach others about him. At Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, we have undertaken a major initiative to develop civic-education curricula and resources. Among the largest projects is a year-long eighth-grade course called “Civic Engagement in Our Democracy.” One of the units in that course is centered on Hall’s life. Through him and his exploration of the meaning of social contracts and natural rights, and of opportunity and equality, we teach the philosophical foundations of democracy, reaching through Hall to texts that he also drew on, and whose authors are required reading for eighth graders in Massachusetts—for instance, Aristotle, Locke, and Montesquieu. These writers and thinkers were important figures to Freemasons in Hall’s time.

Too much treasure remains buried, living mainly in oral histories, not yet integrated into our full shared history of record. That history can strike home in unexpected ways. Not long ago, I was talking with my father about Prince Hall and the curriculum we were developing. His ears pricked up. Only then did I learn that my grandfather, too, had been a member of the Prince Hall Freemasons.”

This article appears in the March 2021 print edition with the headline “A Forgotten Founder.”

DANIELLE ALLEN is a political philosopher and the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard. She is the author of Talking to Strangers, Our Declaration, and Cuz.

[locally-normal]

47 & 48 :)

47. Do you have to suffer to truly understand the human condition? What is the human condition? How can you really experience it?

Alrighty, Hmmm. I feel like your average philosopher could probably spend many books on these questions. Well, I’ve started drinking gin, so I can take a stab at it. I do not endorse any of the following slightly drunken rambling it’s probably all wrong, I haven’t thoroughly thought it through, I’m just spit balling here, basically stream of consciousness. I’m not bothering to be succinct. If you’re still with me.... why?

Hell if I know? Not a cop out answer, I’m never confident what people really mean when they talk about “the human condition”. But I do know it usually comes up in the context of suffering. People don’t say, “Ah, yes, the human condition, marital bliss in a cottage raising a kid and a dog”. People say, “Ah, yes, the human condition, you work your whole life and then you die.” So. Whatever people mean by “the human condition” certainly sounds like they mean something related to suffering, which you could not understand without experiencing suffering.

Is that what’s meant by the human condition though? I guess the question implies that the phrase refers to some property of being human, and then the common consensus is that this property is tied up with suffering, but perhaps it need not be. What’s this property then? Just like, experiences one must have to be fully an adult human? Babies are human, but haven’t had many experiences, hence my use of adult. But perhaps I should say something like “self-actualized”? Legally adult is clearly not the point here, there should be some more natural category.

I guess the best way for me to understand the first question is to attempt to picture a sci-fi society where no one suffers. Ever. Are they recognizably human, or are they effectively alien? Well, there we go, that’s like almost a doable-in-principle experiment, just get some engineers together for a few centuries and we’ll figure it out, till then, wait and see.

I suppose, almost by definition, if one has never suffered, then they have never felt the even a general approximation of all of human emotions. In that sense, they truly are missing something that’s important about being a human, and so one must conclude that to truly understand the “human condition” one must have suffered. If of course a taste of all human emotions is required for understanding the human condition. But I think that’s likely a necessary albeit not sufficient condition. Despite not being able to enunciate what the human condition is.

And I don’t even know that “the human condition” is something which one “experiences” so I don’t know what to make of the third question. Clearly I don’t know how these words work.

---

48. Are you free? Will you ever be? Can anyone be truly free?

(I can’t help but imagine that this was asked after a _huge_ bong hit. Please imagine my answer in the same vein, even though that’s not my thing at all).

My folks like to compare the American “free” ideal with the Russian “free” ideal. The American one is something like, “I have rights you know”. The government is massively powerful, but, theoretically, the government can’t just come into your house and beat you up because of your bad take online. (Please don’t link me 3 examples of the US government doing just that. Maybe they do. But you still can send me those links without actually fearing they’ll do the same to you). There’s all this nice democracy and you can contribute to politics and so forth, no taxation without representation except in washington DC, as the slogan goes. If you complain someone will hear you. Ideally. Call your congressperson.

The Russian ideal is, they say, not a rights-based freedom, “свабода”, but rather, “воля”, which is like, the ability to do whatever the fuck ya want. “You say Americans have freedom? You can’t even have a beer while you drive home from work!” Of course, nothing is perfect, you do have to respect the people with power, it takes power to have true freedom, *they* get to truly do whatever the fuck you want. So don’t go around calling Putin a piece of shit or the government will throw you in prison, as they have been in the latest protests. Don’t even go outside when there’s a protest going on nearby cause like, only protestors do ridiculous things like that. But the ideal, is doing whatever the fuck you want. Disrespecting those in power leading to shit is just what you expect, like, jumping off of cliffs leads to falling, so what, you’re going to complain you’re not free? That’s not a very proletarian way of thinking, ya sophist, up against the wall with you (I digress, ignore this sentence, it muddles the point).

So, can anyone truly be free? Certainly everyone can’t ever truly be free, cause I can’t be free to not be punched while you’re free to punch me. If we want the “do anything” definition of free. Then at most one person can be truly free, and realistically there’s probably something they can’t do because their body guards will turn on them or there will be a revolution or something.

Let’s put aside this definition of free, because, honestly, it’s shit. 

Besides cops (who I’ve basically never had a real interaction with, fun fact, certainly not a freedom-limiting interaction, I am privileged), what are other limitations on freedom? Well, society brings you up with its views and biases and various shit. Culture. Gender. Except, raise someone alone and they’re feral, not some ideal unbiased human from the platonic realm. So it seems we effectively cannot be free of the curse of being raised in a culture either.

Is there a point to a definition of freedom if it follows almost trivially from the definition that no human can have it? Well, philosophy, so yes, of course, valuable thought experiments etc. But is it really the definition we want to settle on officially for what Freedom is?

When’s the last time I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t, because of something which I legitimately believe is due to some person/organization/societal force is taking away my freedom?

Well. Maybe I’d wear a skirt if it wasn’t for society being eh about men doing that. But maybe I wouldn’t and it’s just a contrarian urge that I don’t care enough about to fulfill? I certainly haven’t ever bothered to try wearing a skirt in the privacy of my own home. There are things I don’t do because I worry about what people will think, but, in the overwhelming majority of cases, people would think nothing about me wearing a v necked tshirt instead of a regular one and it’s entirely in my own head and I’m working on it. Not society’s fault, not really.

So I think my answer is, never.

Perhaps I’ve been led to not even think of things which I’d have otherwise liked to do. But, eh sounds not super likely, or fits in with the “feral” category.

The obvious thing that’s taken away my freedom lately is coronavirus. But, again, it’s not quite the same as saying “gravity takes away my freedom to jump really high” but it’s damn close.

So I guess I’m pretty darn free, and your answers are “Yes, Yes (trivially), and Yes”.

Do actions have consequences? Yes, so the answers are “No, No, No”. I am not free until I can have my cake and eat it too.

Do I feel able to have any voice in politics, as our esteemed american founders fought for or whatever? No, I live in a city in a deep blue state, and our globe continues to warm at unsustainable rates while we torture, kill, and eat billions of chickens annually and I feel like this will continue to do no matter what I do. (Again, disclaimer: I am likely wrong about everything in this post. Don’t fight me. I did not look up that number it came directly from my ass.) (there are at least signs of the latter slowly changing. I still do not understand how to make a difference, on the margin, beyond the obvious, but that’s probably just a me problem, who knows. Not I.)

So I guess I’m not free, and the answers are “No, No, and Yes, namely, Putin is free to do whatever the fuck he wants except lose power because someone would shoot him but hey bet he doesn’t want to lose power so works out”.

Have I been influenced by society in ways I don’t like? Hmm that’s a more interesting variant of the “influenced by society at all” question but I’m tired. Yes, therefore, “No, No, uhhhhhhhhhhhhh I suppose there could be someone who was only influenced by society in ways that they like, hypothetically, so, Yes, but in any modern society, probably not anyone I’d enjoy talking to very much”.

Is there any version of this question where I answer “No, Yes, Yes”? Uhhhhhh. I can’t think of any. Not if the allowable definition of freedom is constrained to like, something that could reasonably be argued to be a definition of freedom, vs like “One of the above definitions of freedom, and you’re at least 60 years old, anyone younger just isn’t free by definition”

tl;dr as a mathematician these questions reduce to “what’s a good definition for <blank>” and these things happen to all be like geometries, there’s more than one good definition, so it’s a mess and there’s no short answer.