h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A first one might be: feeling hungry, which is a motivation for a need.

My question is, what are the positions and priorities of the related concepts such as opportunity, importance, know-how and others? I also want to hear what people think of freedom as a purpose in itself, which is what some seem to think and also feel very strongly about, or strongly about thinking it. How wide is the concept, what affects the importance? Is it just part of something else?

It was quite scary to hear on the radio of someone justifying military action, having declared themself and their peers, the embodiment of 'freedom'.

Different ideas about freedom are sort of age-dependent. When you're in your teens or early twenties, you want to be free of your parents' controls. Later in life, you might aspire to freedom from cancer. Closer to the end of life, you might want to fend off the need for nursing home services as long as possible.

Meanwhile, there will inevitably be other people whose own freedom is impinged on by your search for freedom. Being a parent and watching your children aspire to unwise choices in the name of freedom can be nerve-wracking. Or watching your elderly parent wobble around won't be fun.

Freedom from tyrants is hard to argue with. Then again, some of those tyrants don't get much chance to share their true views. Didn't Caesar Augustus want to get Rome back into decent shape sop he could bow out and restore the republic?

it's tough being the mature one who removes the punchbowl when the party starts to get rowdy. No freedom for you!

Possibly the most common use of the word, is as a universal and unassailable purpose of life. Conflicts. I've seen 'compromise' promoted as a dirty word. Adulthood is about coping, coping alongside others is ultimate there. The unassailable purpose is not the same, but more babylike because it rejects the concept of those conflicts that the adult negotiates.

I look around at the modern world, and I see opportunities for compromise, but they don't come to fruition. This is frustrating....

I don't think Augustus ever intended to restore the Republic. Ironically, Sulla seems to have been much more committed to democracy than he was.

In "First man in Rome," by Colleen McCullough, Sulla comes across as something of a villain. Of course, she seems to be on Gaius Marius's side. Wikipedia alludes to Sulla's seizing the office of dictator, but using his powers to restore the primacy of the Senate and limit the power of the tribunes. There were purges, of course, after which Sulla served as Consul a second time.

The Roman Empire was something that the people of that time had a hard time being neutral toward.