OK, be ready for some intense world shaking here. You aren't free. No-one participating in life within a structured, first world country is free. Freedom, my friends, is an abstract thought never truly reachable in a civil society. Here is why. To live outside of prison walls, you must abide by the Law.
I know that to at least most of the people who will ever read this that is no real surprise (Except for you, Gary), but even though largely the law is necessary to raise the standard of living within a country, it invariably puts a strain on that ideal that most democratic countries seem to hold up as a totem to unite all those people within: Freedom. However, in many democratic countries freedom is encouraged within bounds set by the law. I feel a need to put a disclaimer in here, I'm not a dirty anarchist. I think laws and rules are needed for a community to work. However, many first world countries say that their country is "free"; I'm just pointing out a certain irony in that.
The real version of freedom provided to us is freedom with a condition. You're free to do as you please as long as it doesn't negatively effect others. This is practicable, and largely leads to a lot of very happy people leading happy lives, in theory. It does put a lid on the amount of things you can do, for example you can't murder, pillage, steal or rape, but honestly if you're not a pirate then you are probably pretty cool with that. However, this basic, non-judgemental and what I personally find to be a pure rule to live by has been tainted over the years. Religion, past events, future predictions and Scientific knowledge have led to laws being past that limit our freedoms even more, social norms and graces limiting our actions to so few it often feels like I'm playing a Role-Playing Game where all the dialogue contains about three different phrases ("Hi, how are you?", "I'm Good" and "Yeah, man". Oh, and the occasional "What date is it? THERE'S STILL TIME!" - just for shits and giggles). And I talk to a LOT of people.
Think about it. Religion in politics has limited the freedom of homosexuals, who are now not free to marry and, if Robert Clark (MP for Box Hill) had his way, soon could not be able to adopt. How does a homosexual wedding degrade the community, who would this event of jolly frivolity impact negatively? How is the raising of an orphan by a homosexual couple who want children going to affect the community? Surely not as much as a couple on the dole who didn't want a child but couldn't afford an abortion? If we're going to limit freedoms at least be logical about it. (A book called freakonomics has my back on that one, give it a read if you want.)
Their are other ways in which our freedom is being hindered unnecessarily. In many councils, when you own land you are not allowed to build on more than 51% of the land. Now, excuse me, but if I ruddy spend 200 grand on a small patch of grass in the eastern suburbs, I want to be able to fit my chocolate slide right next to my cheese fondue jacuzzi AND keep my structurally unsound star-shaped house built on rock n' roll. I don't want to have some council critic come over and say "well that's not safe, and that goes against all these rules." It's my land, I'm not imposing it on anyone but myself, LET ME BE UNSAFE AND KEEP MY SEMBLANCE OF FREEDOM. Council inspectors are really just people there to protect us from ourselves, and personally that's a bit 1984 to me. If people don't adhere to safety guidelines just let them suffer the consequences, they should be free to do so. It is a choice only one person can make for themselves. This is also how I feel about the Peter Garrett debacle at the moment. Those people died because they didn't adhere to safety precautions and training offered by the government, ergo they are free to kill themselves. Same goes for the house fires around the state attributed to the insulation. Those people didn't research the flammability, or if they did, they saw the rebate money as a just trade up. This is one area of freedom in which capitalist democracies excel: Commercial Freedom.
Oh, yeah. I also think suicide should not be illegal because people should be free to deal with their own lives and bodies how they wish. I realise that suicide is more often than not going to impact on at least one person negatively, but i feel we should have a sense of ownership over our bodies. It's like if I went inside and through down my PS2 (No, I haven't upgraded yet, laugh as you will) on the ground smashing it into a million pieces, my brother would be pretty annoyed cause he uses it, but because I own it that is perfectly legal. Suicide is more serious, I obviously admit, but the principles stay the same.
My musings on freedom will continue over the next coming days, but for now i will leave those few of you bothering to read this to stew and comment as you will. Lookin forward to discussions on this one!
Thank you, this has been Shady.
This was a great post but I, being the grammar whore that I am, was distracted by two seemingly minor errors that just happen to be my pet hates of the grammatical nature. I do not wish to point and laugh at you in front of the followers, nor do I wish to pretend that I am any better than you are, but I am commenting on the post, and this is part of the post.
ReplyDelete"It does put a lid on the amount of things you can do..." - Number, not amount. If you can count the things you are talking about then it is number, eg 'amount of sugar' or 'number of grains of sugar'.
'Their are other ways in which our freedom is being hindered unnecessarily.' - There, not their. This was probably a mistake made due to fatigue becaise I KNOW you knew that.
Now those two things are my only complaints about this post. In other words... it was quite brilliant. I agree almost completely and some of those ideas could easily be given their own separate post int he future if you feel like it. I love it. I am so glad you joined the blog.
could be given their own separate post IN THE future*
ReplyDeletelol, just kidding, yeah I agree i could do more but i'd probably get bored with doing an entire blog on one idea knowing me :D.
thanks for the feedback
Hello lt renji's possibly imaginary friend,
ReplyDeleteThis post is throughly awesome. Freakonomics is an epic book. Your whole idea about freedom is really interesteing and I agree with most of it.
For le sake of conversation, I'm going to attempt to disagree with you because I enjoy it and I'm an argumentative blog-stalking jerk. I don't entirely agree with your idea that as long as a person isn't hurting others, they should more or less have freedom. But I think the idea that freedom just means being free from external rules is a flawed one, because agents (like you and me) are effected driven, and controlled by external forces that manifest internally. Let's say I've been smoking 3 packs a day for the last year. Like many a teenage ne'er-do-well, I might think that I'm taking advantage of my freedom in a proud though a petty display of youth liberty. But that's not really true, because my freedom is hindered by the severe psychological addiction that I'd probably cultivate that would make it very hard for me to quit. Likewise the reason I started smoking in the first place could have been because of societal expectation. If I'd been stopped from smoking in the first place, not only would I be healthier, but arguably be freeer in the long term, as I was no longer wasting money to sate my addiction. That's a really bad example... damn it.
The notion that we all have an equal playing field for personal determination, and that laws and rules are the only things in the way of freedom (if it exists.. but I won't get in to that) doesn't stand up. people suffer mental illness, have drug problems, emotional issues, educational and socioeconomic variation and differences is naivety, experiences, networks and values. If we took away all laws that aimed to prevent people hurting themselves, then we are placing them in the hands of these much more arbitrary forces that limit their personal freedom much more than the parameters of rational, effective, democratic and protective law.
I'm heard people say "Of course heroin should legal, people should be able to do what they want. The idiots should be wiped out, it's called natural selection." And there's the rub: though we all complain about the Nanny State I think we all wish that there were people there to ensure we don't slip through cracks. A very large amount of the time, people who want to end their lives are in no fit position to rationally make that decision. Keeping suicide illegal does nothing but discourage it, and surely that's something we all aspire too. The grim evolutionary imperative of nature is much more callous and freedom-inhibiting than humane, and moderately applied, democratic regulations.
Wow I had no idea where that was going lol, might blog it myself. Sorry haha. Once again, awesome post.