Mario Vitale Labrador
1-21-09
Lora Lewis – English 4
Being Free Only Strengthens Your Chains
“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains,” – Jean J. Rousseau. So my interpretation of this quote is that there are basically law and rules. And interestingly I don’t mean in the sense of having governmental laws (that’s I guess a good thing, cause without these “laws” there would be chaos and craziness etc. blah blah blah hahaha). I mean the psychological chains, and those are the worst kind. They are stronger than steal and invisible.
It is, if not already, especially unbearable to undo the conditions that our society has already bestowed upon us (it would be pretty hard). I think, most people are completely oblivious to them (like me :P), and would probably be quite happy to keep it that way. If being a “prisoner” is easy, and being “free” is hard (almost scary at times), the average person would forego his/her “sunsets and songbirds”, and just take his/her place behind bars. He/She would feel most comfortable there. He/She would be used to it, as well as most of his/her friends there. Here’s a quote from Fight Club:
"I see all this potential. And I see it squandered. An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy we don't need.
We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie-gods and rock-stars, but we won’t.
We are the middle children of history, no purpose or place. We have no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives.”
This quote doesn’t even go as deep, it goes way deeper. It’s not just that we’re all raised on TV, and that “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don't need.” Our unsophisticated shallow materialism is just the tip of the iceberg....