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Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

You can have peace, Or you can have freedom.  Don’t ever count on having both at once.

Robert A. Heinlein

First Signs of Spring

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17 Comments CherryPie on Feb 20th 2011

17 Responses to “Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week”

  1. jameshigham says:
    February 20, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    Heinlein, Heinlein – wasn’t he that science fiction writer?

  2. jams o donnell says:
    February 20, 2011 at 10:53 pm

    I think both are possible

  3. forgetmenot says:
    February 21, 2011 at 5:09 am

    Pretty little snowdrops–it must be Spring somewhere!

  4. angus dei says:
    February 21, 2011 at 6:45 am

    Either would be nice CP:)

  5. Ginnie says:
    February 21, 2011 at 7:45 am

    Lovely snowdrops, Cherie. As I watch CNN Int’l these days, I wonder if some of these countries longing for freedom will ever find it OR peace? A quote to seriously contemplate!

  6. MTG says:
    February 21, 2011 at 7:50 am

    ‘Peace’ as commonly understood, is attained through freedom. Such contradiction in terms reveals some inner conflict or anguish, CP.

    • CherryPie says:
      February 21, 2011 at 6:36 pm

      I think the quote is saying that you don’t necessarily have both at the same time not that isn’t possible to have both at the same time.

  7. Tom T says:
    February 23, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    I believe this quote comes from Heinlein’s science fiction book “Starship Troopers”, which is an outline of a future right-wing utopia. Ideas such as the impossibility of freedom without controlled military aggression are integral to his concept of statehood, and he clearly feels that statehood is the only way of creating free individuals. So an infinitely perpetuating cycle of a fractured peoples fighting against each other in order to prove themselves as being what they are contrary to what others are results. He has to invent an arachnoid species to fight against in order to give a cohesive full-world humanity this in-group / out-group dynamic.

    If we are not to posit a war-like alien race, what smaller communities should we break up into? Perhaps UKIP, who I see might include your friend Andi (this is from a cursory webcheck so the shared name could be a coincidence) could give us some ideas on how to resist being conglomerated and such always leave options for a ‘healthy’ and ‘formative’ intra-group friction.

    Me? I think there is a chance that, with a successful community of all peoples working together, and no outside forces to disrupt the resulting homeostasis, there can indeed be both peace and freedom. War does not win freedom, it only wins death.

    • CherryPie says:
      February 23, 2011 at 10:38 pm

      I think the quote is from one of his books although I haven’t read them. The quote from my perspective was made without the wider context of the book setting. My ‘Cherie’s Place Quote’ series is meant to provoke thoughts on life, society, feelings, spirituality etc.

      In the context of your comment about the quote itself, people do need to work together that is the only way to harmony. But human nature leads to people wanting to be (even believing they are) better, more important and more valued than others which in its extreme leads to conflict and eventually war.

      War as you say does not bring freedom, it brings conflict, chaos and death. Those in power on the losing side seek retaliation and so the cycle repeats. War is brought about by leaders and not the people. The people have the power to change this cycle and move towards peace, but they have been taught to believe this is not possible.

  8. Janice says:
    February 23, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    I have freedom and I definitely have peace – would that every breathing soul had the same – until ego is put in its place that’s not likely to happen in many parts of the world…