What is Freedom?

[LifeH2O]

On this day of 'independence' I want to ask what is really meant by freedom and liberty

Is it the ability of doing whatever you want? You may want to hurt someone
Is it let everyone live the way he want, let everyone do what he want? They may hurt you
What is the LAW then? Or is freedom the name of living by a law?
But laws don't always do justice.
Is it justice then?

[stingingnettle]

Fanastic thread LifeH2O and about time too!

My opening contribution are my comments on this exact subject in the National Issues section;


viewtopic.php?f=21&t=551

You can only talk about freedom if you can evidence a prison, mental or physical. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of the Cumaen Sibyl is instructive. She had attempted to attain freedom from death by asking Apollo for a life that was as long in years as there were grains of sand in her fist. She made the fatal mistake of not asking for eternal youth to go along with it and consequently it was not long before she desired death more than anything else. Life for her became the prison.

The Hindu ideal of achieving Nirvana is based around the idea of breaking free from the endless cycle of death and re-birth. So you can see their idea of a prison.

I recently watched the film ‘Rio’ (with my young children) which is the story of a male macaw whose specie is nearly extinct. This bird has lived a much pampered life as a pet and does not know anything about his natural habitat. As a matter of fact it cannot even fly because it has no notion or need for it. When a female bird of his specie is captured in the tropical forest in Brazil, our pet bird is taken to Rio to 'meet' her so that they can make babies in order to save the specie. In the first encounter between the two birds, the female macaw that is captured from the wild is only interested in breaking out of the room-sized cage where as our pet macaw is totally baffled by her obsession. The point is that where one sees a prison, the other sees a comfortable home.

In the Pakistan context, we have yet to achieve true Nirvana from the endless cycle of poverty, exploitation, false promises, nepotism, corrupt rulers and deprivation. Guessing from the choices we make every day, it seems to me that we do not seem to understand the nature of the prison we are in. A high potency dose of religious fatalism keeps us nicely sedated, oblivious of the true causes of the daily torture that our mortal lives has become – thanks to the greed of all those who enjoy their corrupt mortal life with impunity.

Pakistani do not have the time to get philosophical or realistic about freedom because they simply are too busy queuing up for slightly cheaper sugar, flour and bananas to ever consider the possibility that it may be our own choices that have made our lives hell.

Pakistanis will only achieve freedom, when everyone has access to a fair justice system, proper education, financial security and meritocracy. Freedom is not about dressing up in a mini skirt and dancing in a night club in a semi drunk state but it is about the opportunity to free yourself from the tranny of the circumstances you are born into. It is about being able to express and opinion without the fear of a right wing or left wing backlash.

[Mirza Ghalib]

Excellent topic you launched there, Life. And at exactly the right time. Stingingnettle has already dealt with it at length from the philosophical angle of things. I'll simply speak of two aspects of primordial importance to me in any definition of freedom.

The first is freedom of movement. Like the birds in the trees, the beasts in the wild, I, too wish to roam peacefully through the spaces granted me to live in without fearing any kind of interference or violence. This was possible once upon a time in Pakistan. Today it no longer is. I greatly regret it. Where freedom of movement is curtailed, I shall personally never consider identifying with anything else on offer.

The second component in my notion of freedom is freedom from want. The basics must be at the disposal of the human being: a roof over his head, his daily meals, access to clean water and medicine in case of illness and, of course, guaranteed employment. But, careful, this comes with a caveat: I'm in no way advocating a welfare system as practised in certain parts of the world. In fact, I've come to despise the whole west model. What I'm talking about is anti-materialism. We must get out of the clutches of material things, we must stride down the path of simplicity and then, only then will we, if we are lucky, catch a glimpse of true freedom. Look at a Sufi's life or that of a saddhu, why not? and you may just about see where I personally think freedom lies.

[LifeH2O]

In Pakistan we enjoy our freedom (as free nation) by doing 'sab chalta hay'. Our masters enjoy their freedom by looting us knowing they were/are/will be looted as well.

stingingnettle summed it up nicely. I am also looking for what religion says about freedom and liberty. What limits does it define if there are any? I do hate the liberal's limitles 'live and let live' model. West is a very nice example of it. It would have been the best if no ills have been found in their society. Their freedom is costing them and now this westernization will cost us the same.

You are right. Getting free from wants will free us from most of burdens. Simple wants, simple life. Wants are material. Greed, I'll add, is what makes them materialism.

The point I am asking is that are there any limits and restrictions to freedom? if there are what are they? And how would you still call it freedom?

[Mirza Ghalib]

Life, you do have the knack of tackling the hardest topics, in this case the three questions in your conclusion: 1. Are there limits and restrictions to freedom? 2. If there are what are they? 3. How would you still call it freedom?

Now obviously I haven't been there yet, but I tend to suspect that absolute freedom comes to us humans only after death. In this life and world, by freedom we only mean the relative version of the thing. So yes, there are limits and restrictions placed on our enjoyment of free movement, free speech, free whatever else we like. Without going into details, I'd say the biggest hurdle to living free is the might is right concept. We are always in a state of partial slavery whatever we are born, wherever we may be born, both to the powers that be AND to the powers we can't see. A further constraint comes to us from the moral notion of love thy neighbour as thyself. Our exercice of our freedom must not harm a similar exercice on the part of our neighbour.

And so to question three: If we are not exactly living in chains, we call it freedom for lack of a better word, you spotted it right there, Life. We should have had another word for it. But, alas, the language has not provided for any such. So we go back to the distinction mentioned earlier on between relative and absolute freedom. Finally, the human predicament, the human condition is of such a nature that anything which is not outright bondage must be regarded as some manifestation, however limited, of freedom being our mode of life. And again, the main characteristic of this freedom is, like in the case of the animals in the wild, freedom of movement.