Freedom

I'm currently sitting and contemplating the many debates raging at the moment in the academic and political circles and I feel like that nerdy kid in class, putting up their hand just dying to give the answer.   

But, ALAS! I'm not dancing to those tunes in those marble halls. I would love to be invited though. I'd say even, that I'd make a worthy dance partner since I know both technically and physically, the steps to many of their tunes.  

"What do you do in life?" I was asked recently.  

I sighed (happily). It's not often I get real questions. 

"Many things." 

He laughed, then paused, waiting for me to develop on that very general statement. 

"For money," I began. "I work as an all-rounder at an installation start-up." 

Pause.

"Admin...people...technical help...stuff." I concluded. I was uninspired to embellish it further. 

"Ok." He commented, walking away briefly. 

"In my other lives, I write and make films." I added. I wasn't sure how relevant it was to list all of my other passions and hobbies. The list went through my head nonetheless.  

"It's not porn." I interjected the silence.

"Wow! Why do you say that?" He asked suddenly paying direct attention. 

"Because every time I say this, I get asked if it's porn." I replied in my signature, irritated tone. 

"Really?" He asked quite genuinely. "It didn't cross my mind." 

"Well. There's a pretty simple explanation," I began, trying to organize my gym stuff back in my bag. "I'm a nobody." I continued. "And to most people, only a SOMEBODY has the potential and credentials to make a real movie. A nobody, however, can certainly make porn." 

"I understand." He smiled. "It's still weird that it should be the first thing to cross their minds." 

I wasn't sure how to continue that conversation. Without the loudness of the music, the routine of the workouts or the presence of other people, the silence numbed me. 

I was late anyway. The eternal White Rabbit. 

I've been reluctant to engage in deeper conversations with new people the last while. Boredom. Or as I said to one of my lovely actresses in a quick WhatsApp chat "I've mostly been living in my own head for the last couple of months." It's been a king of aloof detachment. 

In a certain sense, a freedom from social desire.

Maybe he would have been a worthy, intellectual dance partner? I think now as I ponder the topic of freedom. Too late, for now anyway.

Back to the current contemplation.  

What is freedom? 

In politics, the term "liberal" is supposed to mean freedom (broadly speaking). However, depending on the location, it has become intertwined with left leaning politics, which is anything BUT liberal. In science at the moment, "freedom" is an illusion because reality is shaped by predetermined forces. In modern philosophy at the moment, it seems to just be some murky ground: undefined, entangled, unattainable fundamentally. In short, it's a concept wrapped up in some old newspaper about to be thrown out.

So what is freedom?

Since this is my classroom (or platform if you will), where I am both student and teacher, I will answer my own question.  

Firstly, it is freedom of mind. There is no other voice but your own, that animates your thoughts. There is no peer group echo, no ancestral loudspeaker, no lover's whisper, no celestial reverb and no legal fine print. 

Secondly, it is freedom of body. This means everything from travelling around in your van instead of being bound to only one location, to body transformation with or without safety guidelines.

Thirdly, it is a principle. This is essentially the philosophy of freedom: its boundaries and responsibilities. The best way to describe an abstract thing is with a good analogy. A neighbour has the freedom to cut down vegetation that is present on their own portion of land, even though it compromises the privacy and/or safety of the adjacent neighbour (in the absence of any other barrier fencing). The affected neighbour has in turn the freedom to place a fence on their own portion of land in order to restore both privacy and potentially safety. Both freedoms are equal providing they both respect the common boundary regulations. This means respecting the prescribed distance from the boundary between the two properties as well as the height permitted for any new fencing. Freedom does not mean the absence of rules when it involves living within the boundaries of a society. The only instance where socially predetermined rules are absent and there is also freedom, is: one person, alone, on an island.

All concepts of freedom such as political, sexual, religious, cultural and material are subject to social regulations within the environment in which they are exercised.

Perhaps here is where personal freedom clashes with social freedom. In principle, freedom should always be exempt from subjective restraints. However, unless you are that one person alone on an island, it isn't. In most cases, there are groups of people, on self-developed (metaphorical) islands that dictate which freedoms an individual member may or may not enjoy. In each case the respective member can only choose to comply, challenge or leave. Depending on the degree of power held by any particular individual or group of people they may really have only one, realistic choice at their disposal. Herein lies the core of most conflicts around the world today: One versus All; Few versus Many etc.

Is freedom also compromise?

A rather well-known personality said a few times during an interview that communism works well within small units such as families, small tribes and clans. It doesn't work FREELY within large organisations of people such as nation states. The reason, he stated, was that communism is exactly what the word entails: COMMON. It implies conformity and erasure of differences as well as limitation of individually profitable pursuits which may not yield equal resources among all its members. It is only through applying force that total compliance can be obtained from large groups of people.

Why?

Because the likelihood of total individual compliance necessary for compromising personal freedom for the sake of the greater good is exponentially lower the greater the sample of people involved.

Applying force is counter-intuitive to the principle of personal freedom yet it can offer greater distribution of resources across large groups of people. 

Yes, freedom can be compromise, but only to a certain extent. Being forced to comply in order to satisfy a large scale agenda isn't compromise. It's still just coercion. Choosing to compromise personal freedom for the sake of the well-being of another member, or members, is freedom of choice and therefore still within the realm of freedom. 

The Corona dilemma is probably the best example of global coercion for the sake of the greater good. Though it was not the case everywhere around the globe, there were plenty of locations where an entire nation was forced by laws and potential punishments to compromise their personal freedom of movement and attire for the greater good.

The jury is still out on whether this would work a second time around at that scale. It does however, prove that in order to ensure compliance in great numbers, force is indispensable and freedom isn't compromise, it BECOMES compromised.

Now, away from the theoretical and on to the purely personal.

I could probably summarize my entire value system with this one word: FREEDOM.

I consider it my highest value as a human. 

There are places in the world that I actively turn my back on visiting (at no particular loss to them either way) because their core values are in stark contradiction to this one highest value of mine. I consciously chose my current location based primarily on the compatibility of its core values to that of mine. My life partner shares this highest core value with me and I encourage my children to learn their limits on how far they'd be willing to compromise their own core values for the sake of "the other". Essentially, teaching the art of freedom and its consequences.

In conclusion, what I see and hear presented from around the world (from the loudest voices) are various forms of coercion often disguised as acceptance and validation. I can simply label it as guilt-based social coercion.

Agree or be excluded.

Embrace or be persecuted.

The greatest tragedy of this corrupt methodology is that it doesn't require genuine, independent thought.

It simply requires you to pretend.

The truth is whatever the loudest say it is.

Everything else is justified by seemingly flawless logic.

Unfortunately, in order to deconstruct "seemingly flawless logic" you need a library of general knowledge, excellent debating skills, perfect emotional control and an insatiable desire to win (this being the wild card element that can corrupt the end result).

Hmm...so what's the point? May as well go with whatever the flow is? 

Personally...I can just answer: It depends !

On what?

My level of boredom.