How do you know that you are free? Free compared to what? Free based on what?

We tend to define freedom through options. More options, more freedom. But that’s a slippery slope. After all, if someone lived in a totally fascist state which happened to offer a hundred different flavours of gruel, we would not think them free. So it is clear that freedom is not a matter of mere quantity of choices.

Another way of defining it is autonomy. The freedom to do what one pleases without interference from others. This seems like a more solid way to define freedom, but it too has its flaws. We consider ourselves free in the modern world, and yet we certainly can’t say we are free to do whatever we want. Most of us are severely limited by finances, ability, location, education, and many other factors as to what we actually can do at any moment.

If I decided that I wanted to buy a car, I couldn’t. I don’t have the money.
If I decided that I wanted to draw a picture of a galloping horse, I couldn’t. I don’t have the ability.
If I decided that I wanted to go to New Delhi in half an hour, I couldn’t. I’, too far away.
If I decided I wanted to give a lecture on the history of French Colonial Africa, I couldn’t. I don’t have the education.

And so forth and so on. The best we can say is that we have the freedom to do what we want within those strict limitations. But how, then, is that different from being a sheep free to stand in its stall however it likes? To sway to the left OR to the right? Are we really so much freer than that?

Maybe we’re no different from those docile cheep in their tiny stalls. Maybe we are merely sheep who are kept in line by being raised to believe that the walls of the stall are the limits of reality, and that makes the thought of life outside these limitations unthinkable. Perhaps our cacophony of options is there to convince us that we are free, when in reality, our lives are as limited and proscribed as that of your average battery hen.

So what would you say if I told you that you are not free?
Would you violently disagree?
Get mad at me? Would you laugh me away and say “Of course I’m free!”?
But how do you know, besides having been told you are free?
Would you just ignore me until my disturbing thoughts and words had faded from your short term memory?
No more to see?
And why is free the thing to be?
Must the caged bird wallow in its misery?
Maybe the happily unfree
Could teach a thing or two to you and me.
What use is being free if it doesn’t make you happy?
What about safety?
How about sanity?
Or even privacy?
Is saying we are not free the ultimate in heresy?
What does it really mean to be free?

That was weird.

We think that freedom means the right to choose, but who gets to decide what choices we have? I mean, sure, we have existential freedom – the freedom to choose from the menu. But who writes the menu?

And yet we think ourselves free because the menu is so big.

And who is more free… the rich or the poor? The rich can afford to do many things we would love to do but lack the means to do so. Their menu makes ours look like a pamphlet. And we like to think – in fact, are forced by society to think – that this must mean they are happier than us.

And God help them if they should suggest otherwise.

But are they truly more free? No matter how rich they are, they can’t actually make themselves any smarter. They can’t rewrite their basic personality. They can’t make people love them or respect them. They can’t force their peers to approve of them. They can’t make the love of their life love them back.

So they have plenty of options… except when it comes to the things that really matter.

Perhaps we are as free as we decide to be. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. A lack of options is only a problem when you need more of them. If you are happy with the menu of your life because it has everything you want on it, who’s to say there is anything wrong with that? Should you demand more options just to prove what a “normal”, freedom-loving citizen you are?

And if so, how free is that?

That’s right, I should mention conformity. No matter how free a society is on the governmental level, we will always have to deal with the pressure to conform. To blend in with the others. Even as society becomes more tolerant over time and the less supportable all overt enforcement of conformity becomes, people’s lives will always be subject to the desire to fit in with one’s peer group.

In theory, every one of us is free to dress up in rubber chickens and spackle and speak only by screaming in Morse code…. but few people do, and when they do, we judge them insane and lock them up. That is the ultimate in conformity enforcement – act too weird and we “take you away”.

Here’s the real tricky question, and I will tell you right now that I don’t have an answer : if we are not free, but we wish to be, what would more freedom even look like? How would a freer society differ from what we have now?

Even in my own libertarian paradise – where drugs, gambling, prostitution, public nudity and most forms of pornography are legal, and children are taught about their bodies and (eventually) sexuality without shame or judgment, and the people vote on bills directly instead of electing “representatives”…. even in this wonderful world, would we truly be free?

I honestly don’t know.

But solutions come from asking the right questions.

And I feel like I have asked the right ones tonight.

Of course, you are free to disagree.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.