Morosoph's Journal: Freedom

Freedom is not democracy, and freedom is not capitalism.

Freedom is, to a first approximation, to act unrestrained.

Society requires that we recognise trade-offs between individuals, but the means by which we achieve those trade-offs is not freedom.

As means to freedom, we focus far too much upon our interaction with others, when in fact most of our interaction is with ourselves. Discipline can bring us freedom, and certainly those who have disciplined their minds to engage in mathematics can attest to the freedom that that brings.

Capacity to develop is strongly linked to freedom. When our natural tendencies are stymied, development cannot occur. Justice on the human level, as well as the legal level, usually has costs that apply to all parties. "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind" said Ghandi; restraint can cripple equally.

So how can discipline create freedom, yet restraint cripple? The latter blocks a motion in progress, whereas the former instills a building block. Enforced discipline might have a cost, then a benefit, of course.

Freedom is not democracy. Those who call democracy freedom and fight for it are selling themselves short. Majority rule is often called "the tyranny of the majority" for a reason. This is not a matter of agreement or disagreement with the majority, but is rather a confusion between instantaneous power (=freedom) and delayed and averaged power that binds us all.

Freedom is not choice, but the capacity to make choices, thus freedom is not capitalism, as a contract might be a freer state of affairs than a corresponding law, but it is not freedom. To walk in the woods is freedom, property law is not. To pay for a walk in the woods is less free than to walk costlessly.

Why do people shy from real freedom and blunten it immediately with "with responsibility"? Certainly there's your freedom and other people's, but hidden in "with responsibility" comes a will to control and maybe be controlled by an adjudicator of responsibility; often the speaker. This speaker in truth doesn't want real responsibility for their actions: to accept their effect and to "own" that effect. They want to abdicate thought and judgement.