Freedom is one of those things where you know when you are unfree, but it is not always so clear when you are free. After all we think of freedom as the default position, we are free until something or someone makes us unfree.
My Heinemann Australian Dictionary (1976) defines Freedom as:
"the state or condition of being free".
Free is define as:
"not restrained by authority or external forces".
Does that mean that obeying the law makes us unfree?
Liberalism defines freedom as the ability to choose, to make your own decisions. However Liberalism has been the dominate political position for two or three centuries in some places, and what is obvious is that for much of that period people did not always get to choose. But Liberalism is a promise, today you are not totally free but tomorrow we will help you to become free. And the range of choices has grown over that time. That is why Conservatives have always opposed Liberalism because we could see the logic of Liberalism, that no matter how small it's claims were today they would not and could not remain small. The logic of Liberalism said that choice had to be the objective, that choice had to be above all other reasoning and that choice had to destroy all other reasoning.
So the reason abortion is regarded as good, is because the women did not choose to become pregnant but she can choose to have an abortion. The reason that Transgenderism is regarded as good, is because the person chose their own gender. The reason drug legalisation is regarded as good is because people should be free to choose. Choice is supreme and any other reason for doing something is wrong, choice destroys all other reasoning because under Liberalism freedom is absolute.
This is a radical departure from Traditional definitions of freedom, traditionally freedom was regarded as freeing yourself from your base desires. We all experience emotions and not all of our emotions are positive ones. To be free we must fight a constant battle against our own nature, ironically being able to fight that battle is a normal part of our nature. We are not being asked to do something unnatural, instead we are being asked to do what we are capable of...controlling our desires. We are free when we control our desires, we are slaves when our desires control us.
Traditionalists say that we are free when we fight against our fears. Liberals say that we are free when we choose not to fear. However if someone was to choose to be fearful, doesn't that also make someone free according to Liberalism? And if not isn't that an Unprincipled Exception?
A drug user may choose to use drugs, but if they should become dependent upon drugs just how free are they? Just how much choice do they have? In this as in other so called choices, Liberalism gives us enough freedom to become a slave.
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Freedom of action is a bit of a crock because the assumption is that everyone is able to get some desired outcome based on their own "free" actions.
ReplyDeleteWe developed a view of the mind, where people were rational and conscious, before we understood how the brain worked, and how humans actually cognitively process information and make decisions.
The reality is we are subject to many subconscious biases, some learned, some a result of indoctrination and some simply biologically hardcoded, which makes us act a particular way, despite our "conscious mind" saying we need to act differently.
This is why we continue to grow and expand and expand our rate of consumption, despite "knowing" that this is environmentally destructive.
The problem of Liberalism, and this is best exemplified in our dominant economic ideology, Market Capitalism, is that our desires are automatically rational and right, because they are our desires, and the goal of social institutions, morality and the like is to fulfil human wants.
But we always end up with what we don't want.
Liberalism and Capitalism are the same economic idea, that commerce should be unrestricted.
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