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15th Aug 1947, India won her freedom. It was a tectonic shift. 1/6th of humanity became FREE!!! was it? really?
I must make it clear that i dont intend to discuss about the freedom and socio-economic inequality existing. I am more interested in analysing it from a individual viewpoint.
Are we free? People may be shocked that i am even asking this question! Of course we are, they will say! Remember the British Raj!!! But this is waht i think is weird... Our concept of Freedom is symbolised by Political freedom!
People will disagree. They will say that one has the freedom to be what he or she wants! Its upto the individual to achieve. I disagree!!
Let us start with the big things in life. We are not free to decide our race, our nationality, our mother tongue etc etc etc! I may sound crazy but keep up with me. We are not even free to decide which name society should call us! Well we can change our name and stuff, officially!!! But to do it i have to spend time n effort and resources in a gov office and more time and effort and resources to let people know my new name!!!Is it freedom then! I dont think so.
I can continue with so many things we are not "FREE" to do! But it does not make sense ne may say- these things are fact and we cannot alter them! Exactly, thats my point. We are not as free as we like to think we are!
I can continue with multiple things. After doing an exhaustive search of most important things that define us, i can finally come up with the top 5 things we are free to do! 1) Choose our career 2) Marry the person we want 3)Our religion 4) Our favourite food and dress 5) Political freedom!
Dont cry out that i a pessimist!!!
Here too, we have multiple constraints that ensures that we excercise our freedom in a very restricted field!
Take career for example. Are we really free to decide on it? Well we have the choice to pick one career out of 40-50 listed out and approved by socio-economic parameters! To get about this, we have invented one more term called "Hobby"!!! Ya we are much more free to decide on our hobby than our careers, though socio-economic constraints also limit our choice, albeit to a lesser exent!
Marriage??? well i wont even discuss about it as it will take up too much space!!!
Religion? Well we have the freedom to believe or not to believe. But if we look into it carefully, you often have to give up this freedom to ensure you enjoy the benefits of social life.
Dress and food? Well we have a degree of personal choice. But almost 60% of stuff is off limits! Wearing your underwears outsides, or having elephant-meat for dinner, will ensure that lots of your other "freedoms" are curtailed!
Finally, our definition of freedom is only about political freedom! Well, less said about it the better!!!
In a nutshell, 90% of the stuff that define us, that make us, are not decided by us!!!! Are we really free???
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This is the most pessimistic article i have ever written. However, i think we often confuse between freedom and equality. All "freedom" movements are actually movements to ensure that people get equal rights and oppurtunities, rather than ensuring individual freedom.
7 comments:
As an individual you are free to do whatever you intend to do technically. Its your fear of the response you may receive that keeps you on a check. And cumulative effect of these fears becomes a part of culture/belief/system/rules etc. What this culture/belief... does is that it questions you specific desire as against the charter of thus formed social needs and if you as an individual still decide that the benefit of your desire is higher than the social cost that you may(very important) incur you add a new ingredient to the social belief. Thus speaking ultimately your freedom depends on your desire to remain free. Thus
you are free.
Otherwise the differential system would not have formed on basis of caste here and on basis of color in the west. Again the remedy (enrichment of social system) would not have come in a way of cure to the earlier accepted beliefs. It may take some time but then when the value system is a cumulative of the total fears of many centuries and civilizations, the desire to change it has to be equally high. Same applies for all the issues like homosexuality, the holy war etc etc.
Hey Bedu..
Very interesting post!
The things that you mentioned such as race, mother tongue, etc are beyond any human's control. Such things (facts as you mentioned) are not regulated/controlled by humans/human-made stuff.
But other man-made concepts in this society are controlled. Opportunities and exploitation have resulted in most of the inequalities. Freedom obtained on 08-15-1947 was a political freedom. There are other types of freedom as well (Economic freedom, freedom to move, etc...). All these man-made concepts undergo constant refinement to set free more and more people.
One of the man-made concepts that needs refinement is nationhood. That sounds ridiculous. It is that bad as caste, creed or any other inequality.
Might-Power-Money introduces the concepts of slavery and freedom. Anyway, I am least bothered about understanding such man-made concepts. Every man is an animal which strives for being the fittest. There will be such stuff, maybe in different forms, until man exists.
- Maddy
P.S. Realization of man-made concepts mostly gives pain. Realization of natural concepts does not give that much though.
Loved reading your post. Could not read the comments after that! The points have been succinctly put, though i dont agree with all you say. Dont have to either. Freedom, eh?!
You can't even begin to imagine how much sense all this made to me,,in my present state of mind.
great stuff.
To quote from Enchridion by Epictetus (an ancient Greek philosopher):"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion,
pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our
control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our
own actions.
The things in our control are by nature free..."Thats a must read for understanding freedom and an individual's choices and his limitations.
right-o, sir.
i've always felt cynical about this freedom thing, you put it more succintly in words.
hope we have more from you soon.
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