"Happiness requires freedom and freedom requires courage". (Venue A: Caffè Nero)

THE VENUE: Caffè Nero

The weather forecast for Sunday looks promising so we expect to meet outside by the river. But things may change. So, the default is to meet indoors but please look out for updates before you leave home.

When we meet inside, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Nero location.

We meet upstairs at Caffè Nero. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: "Happiness requires freedom and freedom requires courage". Do we agree?

Thank you to Richard for this week's topic.

The quotation is a line in the funeral oration that Pericles gave for Athenian soldiers killed in the first year of the Second Peloponnesian War against Sparta (431 - 430 BC). Pericles goes on to exhort the citizens not to fear the dangers of war.

(The source is Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.43. The Greek is terse: "The happy the free and the free the courageous". So there are different translations around. We have given a reading that is natural in the context of not fearing war.)

Happiness and freedom

What sort of happiness requires freedom? Maybe inner feelings of contentment do not. But maybe flourishing (a good translation of the Greek adjective eudaimon), does. Do you flourish only if your life is one that you have freely moulded? How important is it that you are able to do it your way?

On the other hand, could freedom work against both contentment and flourishing? Maybe too much freedom lets us make foolish choices.

And should we be concerned with flourishing, rather than just inner contentment, anyway - either for ourselves or for other people?

Freedom and courage

Does freedom require courage to preserve it? Sometimes, obviously yes. But even when there are no tyrants or invaders for us to oppose, should we sometimes push at the boundaries of what is allowed, a courageous act if it poses some risk to our reputations or our job prospects? Maybe if we do not, the boundaries will shrink to fit the range of things that people routinely do already and exclude new lifestyles that people might come to want. Perhaps each generation's equivalent of the hippies are guardians of our liberty and therefore our happiness.

Does freedom require courage in order to use it well and be truly free? Maybe it is no use being free and then being too nervous to use your freedom.

Let us all be brave and flourish by saying what we like on Sunday.