Saturday, October 16, 2010

Critique to freedom

The limit to freedom

We all like to talk about freedom, we all love to defend this lady for her rights when we feel it is been abused. We are so sensitive about it that whenever we hear the cry of “help our freedom is under fire” we give ourselves the right to attacked lands and wager wars just to fight for it, but in reality how free are we?
In reality freedom is nothing but actions bounded in limits. These limits in my opinion come in two forms:
1. Physical freedom: What we can do physically
2. Mental freedom: What we can think
In my opinion freedom at its best is mostly freely in the second arena.

The Utopia of limitless freedom, and how it can never exist:

Consider a universe where there is no laws of physics applied in manner which can restrain your physical freedom and, no laws are there to govern you and limits you on your actions and you are truly free to do whatever you want, think whatever you think, and carry them physically. In this case you can truly be free, act and do what you feel like. However for this case to work there should be one main principle which must apply at all times:
• You must be alone in this universe at all time.
You may ask why is this so? A universe with populations of +1 will lead to limited freedom automatically. Once everyone wants their version of freedom your freedom will be restricted more and more. Let’s say you wish to fly naked on a half breed horse and cat, and the other individual does not want that so he or she is then free to complain. However since you are a selfish fool you tell her tough luck, deal with it, I am free to do whatever I want. So now the other person has two options:
1. Since she/he cannot remain indifference to this he or she must limit her freedom by not been where you are, which automatically demolishes the perfect Ethiopia of freedom for her.
2. She can get a gun and shoot you in the face because he or she is free to do so, offcourse others then have the right to do the same to her and soon you will have to hell in this haven of freedom.
Consequently you must be alone. No let’s not forget the reality that been alone is impossible now days and the perfect Ethiopia is just a thought experiment at its best. And we all saw how one in this hypothetical made up world is still very much limited in its freedom! Let’s go back to reality and look at the two cases I have stated at the very beginning.


Physical freedom:

Physical freedom is the state of being able to carry any physical actions without been bounded by anything. Of course there are limits to this. The limits come down to laws/regulation of one’s nation/culture/religion and your physical ability. So once again perfect freedom cannot exist .
Laws and regulations restrain us from many actions. The fact that you are restricted to be free in completely against the idea of freedom.

Mental freedom:

This is the place where we can have the most freedom. We can think of all things we are physically restricted. However once again the limit to this is your imagination. Some person can be more mentally free than the other.
Mental freedom at its best is only a subjective, limited to the power of your mind.

So what is my point?


Let me clarify one thing, freedom by all means is not an illusion, it does exist and yes it is quiet applicable, however freedom is not limitless, and in fact if it becomes limitless all it will be doing is attacking itself. So it is best to have limited freedom.
So why did I wrote that? In current times we all become so lost that our racism and ignorance finds its way out by a abusing the notion of freedom. Countries wager wars upon other nations by the name of freedom. We attack people as they are appearing to be from the people who “hate freedom”. Reason for this is because we forget to notice freedom is very subjective and culturally sensitive. We put down people who do not agree with our version of freedom. We make fun of people who use a different version of freedom. We make fun of people for the clothes they wear, for the food they eat and......... We forget that all they are doing is following their own limited freedom. And in their limited freedom your action could very much be the joke or the stupidity they all try hard to prevent themself to do.
Laws and regulation always exist. One nation came to this limit by means of ‘census’ and the other by means of ‘divine intervention’. What is important is that laws and regulation are a must, and a necessity. They are there to protect the very subjective notion of freedom from itself.
The only question remains now is under which limited freedom you want to live your life in. I believe this is why war occurs. People do not like the limit their society is given to them, they have issues with it and their ideas are been way too restricted then it should. Other nations see that and want to help but they are forgetting that in the same society there maybe be millions who are happy the way things are limited. People should have the right to be able to live in societies best suited for them. World politics fails at this. We fail to allow people these rights. And we try to solve this problem in the most unusual ways. In means of wars.
So what now? I guess at the end it is up you and after all you are free to be free within the limit of the limit your choice to freely live a limited life.
Like always this is only my opinion and could be very wrong.

2 comments:

  1. Let me first say that I think war is a horrible thing, period. However I do not agree with how you perceive freedom as subjective. That is an excuse not to even attempt to measure freedom relative to one another. Take science as an example. There is no argument that the west is in the lead of science throughout the world. Saying the measure of advance in science is subjective, is at least foolish and ignorant. Likewise, anyone living in North Korea for instance is not living in a free society (when compared to west). Note the word "compared". I agree that freedom is not absolute, but I mostly disagree that it's subjective. Anyone who stands up and says that North Korean are free in their own ways is someone who wants to avoid the issue.
    Also, whether one is happy with their way of life has nothing to do with how much freedom they have. Happiness merely depends on how much freedom they know they *could* have. If you always thought your country was as free as any country could get, you would have little reason not to be happy. As soon as you find out there is a free"er" country out there, your happiness levels *will* drop.

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  2. ^Dear mike the west see their version of freedom as an absloute, I agree it seem to be better then what the rest of the world have it is certainly all the just and perfect.
    My point in this written was exactly the last sentence you wrote, no matter how free you think you are, sooner or later you will see a new limit to it. It is always changing, it is always fluctuating.
    Freedom is a never ending war that it only self destructs itself.
    It is obvious we cannot change the world, and it is more than obvious when we are trying to change the world all we do is make it a worst place. The method we are doing this changing is just a big failutre. We are imposing our limits to the people who seem to be happy with what they have. And if they do not see the wisdom in your freedom they will reject it. not all thigs which maybe suit you will suit others.

    Dont need to look that much into the past, go back to 1970 and onward and see where it has taken us till now , we have a failed Capitalist society in US, and a somewhat stable yet truly unfair sociliast/communism in Asia. In both cases the op 1% live a good life and the 99% suffer.
    Happiness you refer to is the mental arena I was talking about. For each the limit is different. And best we can do is live the freedom we have now and make the most of it.

    While North Korea seem to be a big chaos, no doubt it may be, as their limited freedom is below what I believe all humanity deserve, do you truly thing the North Korean will benefit if US or NATO decide to give them freedom the Afghan way? Do you possibly think if whenever we feel a nation is not up to scratch when it comes to their "limited freedom" by attacking and sanctioning them, limiting them even more, that we are doing them good?

    Iran is under sanction, why, because US feels the need to do so, yet they worry about the people of Iran, dont they realize this sanction only hurts the people more, if not less? Pure joke if you ask me.

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