Being Free or Feeling Free
1
Which one is more important: the right “to be free” or the right “to be alive”? What about the right to “be happy”. What is the point of living or freedom if you are feeling horrible? Wouldn’t we all (or most of us) prefer to be happy but not really free? It seems that the right to have a happy life is the most important goal for the majority of people.
2
If we believe that human behavior is determined by external causes, the process of decision making also becomes a part of this chain of cause and effects and there wouldn’t be such a thing as “free choice” in an ultimate analysis.
Some people might argue that humans can get out of the vicious circle of causes and effects by the help of their conscious decisions. Even if we accept the argument, the majority of people don’t want to go for “conscience choice”; not only don’t they want to be ruling other people’s destiny, but also they don’t want to take charge of their own life. I have the slightest idea about lots of critical scientific issues and I might not be even interested to read about them. Most of the people are like me and there is a minority of scientists who rule and define the field. That is the same with politics. The majority of people can’t or don’t want to take control of their political destiny.
3
We still can practice some sort of political freedom which can be translated to “being legally allowed to”; through liberal political system, a society gives an arbitrary definition for “self” and “other” first, and then prevents any physical force by “other” on “self”. This type of freedom sets the “self” free from lots of external causes (for example other’s physical force, other’s legal privilege, etc.);
4
I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but there is still one untreatable problem with this type of political freedom; it stays helpless about elusive forces such as the force of persuasion which easily acts as an external force. I call this problem an untreatable one, since those Utopians (I can think of religious states and communism) who tried to cure it, ended up with tyranny.
I don’t see any alternative for liberal political system, but I am wondering if this system provides us with freedom or makes us feel free?!
Which one is more important: the right “to be free” or the right “to be alive”? What about the right to “be happy”. What is the point of living or freedom if you are feeling horrible? Wouldn’t we all (or most of us) prefer to be happy but not really free? It seems that the right to have a happy life is the most important goal for the majority of people.
2
If we believe that human behavior is determined by external causes, the process of decision making also becomes a part of this chain of cause and effects and there wouldn’t be such a thing as “free choice” in an ultimate analysis.
Some people might argue that humans can get out of the vicious circle of causes and effects by the help of their conscious decisions. Even if we accept the argument, the majority of people don’t want to go for “conscience choice”; not only don’t they want to be ruling other people’s destiny, but also they don’t want to take charge of their own life. I have the slightest idea about lots of critical scientific issues and I might not be even interested to read about them. Most of the people are like me and there is a minority of scientists who rule and define the field. That is the same with politics. The majority of people can’t or don’t want to take control of their political destiny.
3
We still can practice some sort of political freedom which can be translated to “being legally allowed to”; through liberal political system, a society gives an arbitrary definition for “self” and “other” first, and then prevents any physical force by “other” on “self”. This type of freedom sets the “self” free from lots of external causes (for example other’s physical force, other’s legal privilege, etc.);
4
I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but there is still one untreatable problem with this type of political freedom; it stays helpless about elusive forces such as the force of persuasion which easily acts as an external force. I call this problem an untreatable one, since those Utopians (I can think of religious states and communism) who tried to cure it, ended up with tyranny.
I don’t see any alternative for liberal political system, but I am wondering if this system provides us with freedom or makes us feel free?!
posted by Homonomos at 2:49 PM
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