Are we “free” in a society?
Society in many ways is not the fosterer of individual freedom but rather convention (agreement), law, order, policy and regulation and ultimately control of a population.
Many of these things are of course beneficial to the vast majority - such as law and order and the general peace and security that comes with that.
However, we are not all equal in a society. Societies by nature are hierarchical. People are positioned both in varying levels of wealth for one, and secondly influence (politics). And often there’s a strong correlation between the two (lobbying, corporate string-pulling and political puppetry).
The irony is that all and any power or wealth in a society is based on the individuals behaviour.
If you can control or coerce large volumes of people to behave or act in a certain way you are influential - an “influencer”.
Yet the dissatisfied portion of every society are bound together by many of the same laments and maladies created by their “down-grading” on the hierarchy.
“I’m not paid enough for my work” “I can’t get educated easily” “there’s too many regulations between me and the thing I want”, “the price of a home is too much”, “I can’t afford decent legal representation” etc etc. The reason they don’t exert any change despite all being “unified/ in agreement about what is troubling them” is that they’ve been led to believe they are powerless, do not communicate well with one another to realise they are a large community that if aligned with a one voice have a lot of clout, or they are too preoccupied with the fear of not surviving and clinging desperately to the only hands that feed them.
It’s a simple fact at the end of the day. It is okay to concede to a state of lack of freedom provided you are happy and your needs are met by those with power over you - power that you gave away to them and likewise it is okay to chase power and authority and more personal freedom provided it serves the well-being of those that fall under it.
Any divergence from this equality is the perversion of human rights.
Many of these things are of course beneficial to the vast majority - such as law and order and the general peace and security that comes with that.
However, we are not all equal in a society. Societies by nature are hierarchical. People are positioned both in varying levels of wealth for one, and secondly influence (politics). And often there’s a strong correlation between the two (lobbying, corporate string-pulling and political puppetry).
The irony is that all and any power or wealth in a society is based on the individuals behaviour.
If you can control or coerce large volumes of people to behave or act in a certain way you are influential - an “influencer”.
Yet the dissatisfied portion of every society are bound together by many of the same laments and maladies created by their “down-grading” on the hierarchy.
“I’m not paid enough for my work” “I can’t get educated easily” “there’s too many regulations between me and the thing I want”, “the price of a home is too much”, “I can’t afford decent legal representation” etc etc. The reason they don’t exert any change despite all being “unified/ in agreement about what is troubling them” is that they’ve been led to believe they are powerless, do not communicate well with one another to realise they are a large community that if aligned with a one voice have a lot of clout, or they are too preoccupied with the fear of not surviving and clinging desperately to the only hands that feed them.
It’s a simple fact at the end of the day. It is okay to concede to a state of lack of freedom provided you are happy and your needs are met by those with power over you - power that you gave away to them and likewise it is okay to chase power and authority and more personal freedom provided it serves the well-being of those that fall under it.
Any divergence from this equality is the perversion of human rights.
Comments (46)
What if the state is unable to fulfill my needs? Also, am I allowed to determine what my needs are, or will someone else determine my needs for me and whether they are fulfilled or not?
Damn they’re very good questions.what such unfulfillable needs do you suggest that the state couldn’t manage? Need being the key word rather than desire.
I suppose the issue that’s being posited here really is how do we a). define the border between the category of “leader” with authority and the “led/followers” - being provided for .
And b). with finite resources there is a state of personal attitude/ belief or expectation to have ones needs be met which is untenable. For example I need to be as well off as the leaders but I don’t wish to provide for others the same resources as I myself would have.
However need and desire are different. Maslows hierarchy of needs doesnt really feature mansions or porches or anything whilst it would feature a “comfortable and secure home” and “access to transport”.
Some people I guess will never be satisfied also even if they have more than enough for their needs. Which is another important thing to consider in which case the “well you get what you get” attitude is somewhat warranted I suppose.
Perhaps there is a third option: if you don’t with to pursue a position of leadership in which you will provide for others, nor do you wish/ are satisfied with position of follower in which perhaps your needs are decided for and fulfilled by others third last option is you lay leave the society and select another or create your own upon failing that.
The issue is territory is also finite and in the currently world most habitable territory is claimed. In essence true freedom to roam uninhabited land up for grabs is a thing of the past.
Well, we are unequal from birth on. Some may be more intelligent, practically dexterous or physically stronger than others, etc. Of course complex societies are hierarchical because they are divided by occupation, etc. and relative importance to society. The problem is that politics is about power and power tends to corrupt as well as seek more power. Without checks and balances, this ultimately leads to a corrupt dictatorship controlled by those who control resources, finance and economy.
My question now is why? Why does power tend to corrupt people? What is it about being able to exert force/ impact on those around you that lends itself so easily to this distortion of morality/ ethics?
Is it that those who wish to be powerful are the wrong type of personality to have power? Or is it that upon attaining it there is somehow a complex of elitism that is developed or that the ego expands out of hand. Or is it simply that one can no longer sympathise with anothers struggle/ desperation once they themselves have been removed from it for long enough?
My guess would be that it's a bit of everything. Obviously, desire for power would suggest a big ego and domineering personality to begin with. Corruption is inherent to some extent in the desire for power and readiness to do anything to attain it. It is later augmented by the fact that you have to accommodate many conflicting interests in order to acquire or hold on to power. The higher up you are, the more enemies you have and your desire for power develops into a struggle for survival or staying in power which becomes your raison d'etre . At that point, the interests of others become increasingly marginal, you become out of touch with the people and with reality and turn into a dictator even without realizing it. This may happen all the more easily in a society where Big Money, Big Tech and the Media hold and exert disproportionate power over society. So, some form or other of dictatorship seems to be the direction society is currently taking.
So much freedom has been sacrificed on this one prognostication. The problem is they do not nor cannot know what "the greater good" is, so it is often used as a justification for megalomania.
Nobody knows what the greater good is. Everyone has to guess. But governments are not going to listen to a poll on every issue that comes up. They are here to stay. Why do we have income tax in this country? Because the U.S. is a society. The rich use the roads and avenues of society like everyone else. Who runs society? Governments. So the powerful take from the rich and give to the non-starving. This is how humans act. Nature has a political dao. We separate kids from their parents when the parents do wrong to show the kids and the parents the might of the nation. Humans can't choose to act any way they want. Power and rights will always fight each other and nobody in the end knows where we will end up
Has the individual ever been free? We've been living in ever-growing communities for the last 12,000 years, but even as hunter-gatherers individuals were not "free". Social animals like us can't be entirely free and independent agents. We are obligated by our various needs to maintain tight social relationships.
Obligated social beings as we are, we still have drives which conflicts with society. We have all sorts of needs and (especially) desires which may not be satisfied, sufficiently or at all. That is the bind we are all in, and always have been in.
There are various ways one can find relief. One can rise in society and gain more executive agency. People with more power and money have more options. One can also find social roles which involve less conventional social engagement. Loners, mavericks, and rebels specialize in social opposition. This route involves significant material sacrifices, usually, but can bring the reward of individual executive agency and interesting options,
One can also adapt to society, which is what most people do. Well-adjusted people fit society and society fits them. They may be better or worse off than others, but they are reasonably content, reasonably successful, reasonably happy. This is the lot of most people in the world.
It has always been a prime directive of philosophy to show that people are free not just despite any regulations or limitations but because of them.
The 16th amendment to the constitution didn't occur until 1913. Until then an income tax was imposed only to prop up the state in times of war. So its not because the US is a society that there is an income tax, but because the government, inspired by competing socialist and populist forces, gave itself the right to pilfer its citizen's wealth on the specious claim that politicians knew how to better use the people's wealth than they did. We can blame human nature all we want but it does not excuse the actual perpetrators of this exploitation.
Nobody is free in a society; no one ever has been, or will be. Likewise those who try to step outside of society. Likewise those in charge. It doesn't matter. Life charges admission no matter who or where you are. Pay up or get the hell out. Those are your choices, whether you like it or not.
After all the accounting of freedom to and freedom from has been tallied up, we get to see where we are on the scale. But regardless, someone had to suffer your insufferable ass. Any you, them. That's just the balance due. Freedom is a fiction to fight over, to pay for.
You had me until you I read the above. Your style is lucid, your examples were very true, striking and typical. They are highly present in my life and in my friends' lives. I liked societal aspect of how you introduced the topic. I understood and agreed enthusiasticlaly with everything you said until the quote came around in the reading.
People feel powerless because they are powerless. This is not an illusion planted in them by the circumstances and by the suggestion of the ruling class. This is actually a reality.
The don't have the guns. They don't have the money. They lack the communications and the organization.
Of these, only organization and communication can be obtained. Instead of sending cute cat pictures to each other, the downtrodden could organize a coup d'etat. But they don't, because they also lack -- by and large, there are exceptions in both camps -- intelligence to get organized.
I would also say they don't have the numbers. People who live in poverty, in apartments, and get paid lousy wages tend to be less smart than middle-class white-collar workers. But not as numerous as the cream of socitey. I define the cream of society to be those who live a normal lifestyle: own their home, have a vacation every year, provide a good education for their offspring, and have good food on the table. This, the cream of society, still outnumbers the poor people in Canada.
All these things are against the odds of the poor successfully changing the system, and not, or not only, is the reason for their poverty that they had been brainwashed to think they are powerless.
You get paid for your work. You decide how and on what to spend the money earned. Nobody else has to look out for you and decide for you what your needs are... you decide yourself, and you use your money to buy those things and services that YOU decide YOU need.
YOU also are forced to pay taxes. This is used for many things that private people can't do: build roads, maintain a military, run government services like patent office and copyright protection, drug testing for approval for fitness, educating the populace for job readiness, and a million other useful services you can't do without, as well as foreign diplomacy administration and internal policing.
In Canada, Australia and Europe, the gov also runs a lucrative and manageable medicare program.
If you think you are unduly taxed, because some eggheads think they know you better than you do what to spend your money on, fine, try to exist for a few months without water supply, grocery stores, gasoline, and any medication, and then report back to us how it worked out.
But should all people receive the same rights in case of being free? I don't think so. All people do not have the same amount of knowledge and ability to comprehend complex problems. So the limit of freedom differs to some people. But for some people life is unfair, freedom doesn't exist in their life because there are people who doesn't allow them to be free. Slavery, Bondage... Of course it depends on which society are you living in with which groups of individuals you are living with and if being free in some sense is allowed in it. Well, but if you consider the fact that our choices are nothing more than our vision about the world created from our experience with other people, then you certainly find "freedom" to be meaningless..
https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333?fbclid=IwAR3olPEM0IJU153GNvvZ5ktHV32cbFql_2MOz3IeiNnKh5LuSnxVydk9RJE
A liberal friend of mind sent this to me, calling it malarkey. There is a struggle in the US between traditional white people and non-white Americans and their liberal white friends. It's a power battle for the most part. It is almost as if a race war is underway or already here in a way. Everyone ideally should get equal privileges but this never seems to work out practically. People don't get along and people don't always know what is best for them. A lot of whites feel like they should be showed respect from non-whites and they don't want to deal with non-whites being all around them all the time. Non-whites like to get in the face of whites to make their presence known and this leads to conflict. It goes back to the foundation on this country and it is not an issue that can be settled by a debate
Except they don’t, or rather can’t. At least not by any punitive measure. Tax avoidance is a wealthy mans specialty. The middle class pay a disproportionate amount of their wealth into the system and this is because they don’t have an accountancy team working around the clock to maintain their assets.
Furthermore the whole way in which the monetary system operates further rewards wealth with interest rates which are negligible in the case of small capital but quite significant at large sums.
One could simply live off interest alone if they have a large lump sum in the bank.
Also the way the justice system operates companies can essentially raise a legal “blockade” while they operate to profit by questionable means. By this I mean they have no intention of winning the case in court all they have to do is have their team of 50 high profile lawyers find every way in the book to stall proceedings for as long as possible and appeal repeatedly. In the meantime they’ve made 20X what they’ll pay as a penalty to the court.
I suppose you’re right. In many ways I think this is why the escapism of media and literature plays such a large part in our lives. Distraction from the disenfranchising aspects of every day social life and lack of true freedom. If anything the human mind and imagination is the most free thing we’ve got - there is little restriction in the non physical/ hypothetical.
Why does equality lead to jealousy? Surely it ought to have the opposite effect. Then again being as subjective as we are “the grass is always greener on the other side”.
Do you think we would be better off if we lived in a public “campaigning/ go fund me” type society where instead of paying tax to one centralised governing body each person is free to select their own beneficiary’s at an individual and micro-group level but have to invest a certain percentage of their wealth minimum.
I can see some benefits and flaws: the benefits being money would be spent by a community on its own improvements - the people who are most acutely aware of their local communities needs are directing the money rather than some national body. Also a lot more diversity would be seen in innovation and entrepreneurship.
The major problem is highly costly and large scale projects would never be funded because not enough money would be directed towards it. People tend to focus on what impacts them and their families most not what’s best for the country.
That’s a brilliant quote. Of course freedom also operates in the avoidance of adversity by “restricting” you for your own good, not just the liberty to do what you want.
My only issue is I think one can go overboard with regulation. Many of our societies are getting to what I call the stage of “bubble wrapping”.
That is to say blanket restrictions for all on even the slightest of risky activities due to the inherent idiocy of a few. Bubble wrapping everyone and enclosing us in safety net after safety net so we can’t accidentally injure ourselves. It kind of drains the exhilaration out of activities because at the end of the day “life is a risk sport no matter how many protections you put in place and some people will always be hurt so we should go with waivers and disclaimers rather than preventing people from exploring limits that are considered borderline unsafe.
I can understand why adrenaline junkies seek out threatening situations to feel alive again.
Do you think it will always be a case of providence by the better off? Or is there some way to encourage the poor to have self- directed, motivated and productive attitudes and improve their lives? Perhaps they don’t see any need to improve. Some people are very satisfied with their circumstances despite what others may believe.
I guess in the end it’s a case of a Gaussian distribution of productivity or intelligence or wealth etc. For a population of people you always have the majority in the Center - and then the exceptional upper margin and unexceptional lower margin. There’s always a “poorest” person not matter what.
Initially it doesn't. You give equal rights to everyone and it increases the overall level of wellbeing. But at some point people feel that everyone should be treated the same. The fact is that everyone and everything is different. To some degree. Even identical twins are not identical. It creates a feeling of dissatisfaction based on comparison. Some call it competition, others call it envy or jealousy.
I think it's important to celebrate our differences.
Total individual freedom is an absolute illusion and can never be achieved.All of us we are defined by circumstances we are born in (family status, society, health issues, geographical factors, wealth etc). If someone wants to live in a society he can't do whatever he wants cause he affects and he is affected by other society members.If for example I feel happy and free just walking naked around city I just can't do it. Cause they will judge me,attack me, cuss me, I would find closed doors at jobs etc. Even if I wanted to live all alone in the mountains I would have to deprive myself from some of the things that I would enjoy in society(friends for example).
As in life you can't have it all, same happens with freedom. Freedom is just a state of mind and only in such way can someone approach it and still not totally. You just have to compromise and find the balance in which fields you are willing to "sacrifice" your freedom as to gain more freedom in other fields.Your personal happiness is the only goal so that's what you have to estimate every time you look for that balance. The more freedom you get in general the more happy you'll be, and the more happy you become the more freedom you get. It's a constant fight knowing that you will never fully win it.
Agreed. That often has something to do with insurance. The idea of motorcycle helmets and seat belts in cars sounds a little intrusive, but the requirement is often not because society cares about the individual; rather, it's because someone has to pay for taking care of them when they end up a vegetable, and the insurance companies absolutely hate paying for anything. So, we pass laws to keep the premiums down and Darwin is denied the opportunity to work on the adventurous.
Good point. So it's a kind of society "selfish" thing to do. And it is fair don't you think? Society shouldn't have a way to get protected from individual stupidity? So laws offer that protection. Society has to win something too out of it. Seems logically fair to me at least.
Human beings have evolved to take care of the sick, lame, lazy, stupid, and merely unlucky (including those intelligent and wise who dare). It is our way. The idea that people should be left to fend for themselves is inhumane and, from an evolutionary standpoint, stupid. Neandertals took care of each other, as did Cro-Magnon and everyone else on two legs with a brain. But this is all really beside the point that nothing is free. If it's not costing one, it's costing another. That can be through payment or through cost-externalization, but it will be paid for.
But I didn't say not to take care of people. Even if that for me is a total selfish thing to do also. It comes from the love for your family. It's instinct and not something altruistic what Neandertals did for example. Simply your individual benefit its also the social benefit as to evolve. But that's not my point of course society should take care of everyone but that everyone should also contribute if he wants society to care for him. It's for his own individual benefit at the end(wear helmet, pay taxes for hospitals etc). The problem is that people can't understand it truly. That's a total different issue though nothing to do with freedom so I leave it there.
Agreed. Besides, I don't understand the rest of what you said. I'd ask if English is your first language, but I guess I don't much care since none of any of what has been said addressed my OP about nothing is free.
In other words ...
To be free of fear and/or the adverse consequences (i.e. historically accumulated legacies) of
(1) economic exploitation,
(2) social discrimination, and
(3) political mass-violence in reaction to (1) & (2)
is freedom.
Liberty, it seems, consists in social arrangments, or institutions, which manifestly function to defend, sustain and extend the scope of freedom. No society, no liberty. No liberty, no freedom most of the time for most people. No freedom, no society.
[quote=The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)]We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.[/quote]
Your are right on target. There is this very extensive discourse aimed at convincing us that we are free. We are free, for example, to buy whatever we like and can pay for: See Amazon.con. We can freely move--pull up stakes in Maine and try Arizona. There are all sorts of things we can do without much restriction which creates the impression of great freedom, while at the same time foreclosing options that might yield greater long-run freedom.
While we are pretty much free to quit any job we dislike, we are definitely not free to organize our fellow workers for better working terms and a greater share of the profits they produce. The law is stacked against workers organizing, as is the combined weight of Capital. At various times, political deviance has been severely repressed. Even the expression of political deviance had been sanctioned at times. Deviant sexual behavior is much less policed now, but that is a recent development. Well, one can multiply the many examples of ways in which we are explicitly or implicitly not free.
Helping the implicit and explicit restrictions on freedom, there is the escapist literature you named, everything from Downton Abbey to The Simpsons--two of my favorites. One thinks of the Superman comics of one's youth -- a powerful person capable of slicing through all limitations. Some prefer Jane Austin; others prefer hard core porn, but we all want to escape.
It's a conundrum: being sort of free and sort of enslaved at the same time. I'm on the side of those who want to cut through the confusion to reveal what is arbitrary restriction of freedom (repression of workers' organizing, workers' exploitation) and what is natural restriction (individual limitations, social necessities like working to produce food, clothing, shelter, and escapist literature). I'm on the side of those who want to reduce arbitrary restrictions on freedom for workers who are 95%+ of the world's population.
Quoting Tzeentch You are absolutely right, and I agree with you.
This is why I wrote, that perhaps you read,
Quoting god must be atheist
Money is exchangeable to that product that you need and YOU decide which product it is. Money itself is not needed; you can't use money for anything but to buy goods and services. Therefore they don't DECIDE for you what you do with your money when you get paid. You decide what to do with your money. I don't know if you understand this, and you wrote the quote above in agreement, or in disagreement. If you were a bit more explanatory and less quizzical, it would help me formulate the proper answer to you.
I am not blaming you or your style, I am not criticizing, I am just saying that for my comprehension, your response above is lacking in informative value.
In what case? Did I make a case? Again, you guys are thinking out quietly to yourselves what you are responding to, while not letting your conversation partner know what the dickens you are referring to.
Please use the quote function to direct attention to the points you refer to in someone else's posts.
Many people want Freedom without the Responsibility it bring. They are immature/naive/inexperienced. Coming to terms with this is a vital step in developing as a human being.
Quoting god must be atheist
Essentially a state will tell you what you need, and then claim it does a decent job at providing it. I consider it to be a bad judge at both. Additionally, it forces these conditions on you through violence or threat thereof.
As if that kept the premiums down... insurance companies employ actuaries to calculate the risk on return, but basically they charge the maximum the market will bear. They are a business, not a benevolent society. They are not even in the business to run a fair lottery. They are in the business of making money.
So please tell me which of the following do you deem bad judgment by the government, and which you vehemently oppose your money spent on: building roads, bridges, hydroelectric dams, or maintaining a military, a law enforcement service, or jails or the legal system, making sure the professionals pass a bar of knowledge level, expertise and training, or that houses are built to standards that prevent accidents and deaths, etc.
Quoting Tzeentch
If it were not for the government, then gangs of thugs would force you into much worse conditions, again through violence or threat thereof.
Aside from the preceding, and also related to the preceding:
You've heard all my arguments before and I have heard all your arguments before. Basically we think of each other as misguided idiots, who can't see beyond their noses, mutually and equally. If we carry this on, you will always say something and I will always say something to that. Do you want to continue with this? I don't, not particularly.
Dropping bombs on civilians, for one.
Quoting god must be atheist
What is worse, a large gang of thugs or a small gang of thugs?
Quoting god must be atheist
Your words, not mine.
Quoting god must be atheist
Or I wouldn't be here.
. Unless you're attached to anything ... your Life is a celebration ... you ... live in utter freedom ...
. You can be free in society ... Yes ... but ... you cannot identify yourself with any social bound or condition ... otherwise ... you would be stuck on the society shackles ... on the society traps ...
. In order to be a ... human being ... you shall be free ...
. Inevitably ... you'll be in society. It's impossible being out of society. Even if you go to the himalayas ... you'll carry out ... with you ... the social conditions in your mind ... as a subtle ... autohypnosis ... that society has been giving to you ... since your birth ...
. Out of intelligence ... freedom is possible ... even ... in a repressive mean ... even ... in a repressive environment ... Why is it so?
. Because ... freedom comes from within ... friend ...
. Nobody can take you out ... You ... as such ... are freedom ...
. It's your very birth right ...
. Once upon a time ... Buddha was recorded for saying - "Even in Hell ... I'll be well."
Name the last time a bomb was dropped on your head by your government. Not figuratively, but with bomb in the unfigurative, literal meaning.
Quoting Tzeentch
A small gang of thugs are worse.
Quoting Tzeentch
your statement does not state whether you disagree or agree.
Quoting Tzeentch
Groan...
You misunderstood. I'm talking about war, of course. A long-standing, bloody tradition that (certain) countries cannot seem to get enough of, and that every taxpayer is complicit in whether they like it or not.
Quoting god must be atheist
Well, I would disagree.
Quoting god must be atheist
I don't think you are a misguided idiot, even if I disagree with you.
A euphemism for the regulation of humans for the purpose of creating wealth for the elite.
A euphemism for subtle slavery of the majority to the tiny minority.
A billionaires manifesto!