everyone
seems to agree
that freedom is a desirable aim; hence the word
«freedom» is one, which is being used and abused all around us.
«You are free to choose which colour you want,” states a
commercial for
sweaters. When a garment is produced in different colours, one would
have
thought that this fact should be too obvious to be stated. The fact
that it is
nevertheless emphasised illustrates the state of affairs in which
freedom has
become so popular that it is used rhetorically in every possible and
impossible
circumstance. It also serves to exemplify the fact that in most of the
contexts
in which the word freedom appears, the matters at stake are of very
little
importance to us.
There
is a sense in which
we all live in the shadow of Jean-Paul Sartre;
the great modern theorist of freedom has had a great impact on the
self-conceptions of people alive today. To Sartre, freedom is set apart
from
happiness, and he can be interpreted as stating that freedom is the
only thing,
which is valuable in itself.As opposed
to an antique conception of the world and human beings according to
which
realizing one’s human potential is equated with achieving happiness, to
Sartre,
(who would not use the word potential) acting authentically as a human
being is
to act freely.While freedom can be
conceived of as existing in relation to a concrete good or evil –
as an ability
to achieve a good or to avoid an evil – freedom after Sartre does
not lead to
specific goods or to happiness, it even undermines these aims because
it allows
the agent to see their subjective, contingent and changeable character.
Although it is a
misinterpretation of Sartre’s theory to claim that the choices one
makes should
be such that their outcome is always open to revision, that their
consequences
should not be lasting and final, lest one limits one’s own freedom,
there are
places in which he seems to interpret himself in this fashion. This
perverted
version of Sartre can be seen to resemble the most dominant conception
of
freedom today, the freedom of the market, which most often is the
freedom to
make unimportant choices of little consequence. Thus freedom has become
divorced from meaning. The result is that we all want freedom, although
most of
us don’t know why or what for.
i
don’t know what freedom is, but I know what the opposite is. It’s being
sick without health insurance» says one those asked in C. Fred Alford’s
book Rethinking Freedom (2005). The
opposite of being free is conceived of as feeling helpless and no one
being
there to help, of being at the mercy of others who show no mercy. What
Alford
fails to comment on in relation to this example, is the degree to which
this
evaluation of helplessness is socially created. How does the fact that
a
society fails to come to the aid of someone in need shape the
individuals’
moral outlook and view of freedom?
Many
of the young people Alford asked see freedom as being
equivalent with money and power, or as being unimportant compared to
money and power.
I believe an important part of the explanation of why they think so is
one
central negative freedom they don’t posses, and that is largely lacking
in
today’s society, namely freedom from fear. A large number of people
live in
continuous fear of losing their jobs, they fear the social consequences
of
becoming ill and not receiving adequate help, they fear having to face
a
welfare system which is concerned with humiliating one. Facing the
welfare
system means facing the accusation that one’s position is due to one’ s
own
incompetence, one’s irresponsible life-style, and that one cheats in
order to
receive underserved benefits. In short, one fears helplessness combined
with
the reactions of others who not only fail to sympathise, but also do
what they can
to induce feelings of guilt and shame.
a
lot of people see
money and power as a solution that may prevent
their own fall. Some of the people interviewed by Alford have no second
thoughts about money and power being the desirable thing, others regret
that it
is so, but still see it as the reality to which they have to
accommodate. Thus,
the marked has a capacity to provide individual relief, say, rendering
better
and a lot more expensive health services available (although only to
those who
are able to pay for it). The problem at a social level arises when a
sufficient
amount of individuals do so, as they lose interest in maintaining
health
services as a common good. A public health system shifts from being
thought of
as existing for everyone, to becoming only for the sake of an
unprivileged
minority. When Bondevik (the Norwegian
prime minister for the Christian party, leading a coalition government)
refers
to people as «the poor», he reveals this lack of identification.
«The poor» are thought of, not as someone who might as easily have
been myself had things turned out differently, but as a stigmatized
group,
whose members one may «feel sorry for», but fails to feel related to.
This fragmentation on a social level is accompanied by a lack of trust
on the individual
level, from which people conclude that they have to provide for
themselves
because no one else will, – in many cases it is a «regretful
egoism»
– leading to a shortage of common goods as an unintended
consequence.
Also,
some of the enthusiasm about the freedom of the marked can be
explained as a revolt against higher social groups holding what is seen
as too
much power in different sectors. (The health-sector can be used as an
example
again.) The market promises to remove some age-old unequal
distributions of
power, expressed in the dictum «the customer is always right». Thus
it gives an answer to a felt impotence, which would explain the
apparent
paradox of why so many of those voting for Frp, (the
Norwegian populist-liberalist party), are those most likely to
suffer from the cuts in the welfare budgets the party proposes.
However,
although an omnipotent part of the self may want to be «always
right», people are also basically communicative beings. Probably, most
people would rather have a say in the questions that concern them, feel
respected and taken seriously, and be able to influence matters of
importance
to their lives. Yet when this need is not met, being «always right»
may seem an attractive alternative to being overruled and being
inferior in a
system of unequal power distribution. But the cost of this solution is
that
everyone is left to rule in their own closed domains which do not touch
those
of the others. And this lack of communication again results in a loss
of
meaning.
When
fear becomes too prevalent in a society, the society suffers as a
result. Knowing that there is a limit to how far one can fall would
give people
a sense of freedom, which lends itself to be put to a more positive
use.
Whether one lives in a society that kicks people who lie on the ground
or one
that supports people who fall down to enable them to realize their
potential,
does make a large difference to how people evaluate what their freedom
is
about.Only by creating an environment
in which relying on, and depending on, others is not too threatening
and not
too shameful, can a society provide a safe ground on which people can
exercise
their freedom. And it is the moral task of any society to provide such
a
ground.
