Personal freedom
Overview
Modern western cultures claim to value freedom of choice as a primary right society should strive for. Historically and in many eastern cultures patriarchal control of a subjects role in society, tasks they do and who they can mate with has been a method to maintain stability and peace.
Is freedom a requirement
Personal freedom is an abstract concept, it will mean different things to different people, with a lot of biases and irrational thought surrounding it.
No person has the freedom to do whatever they want, we all live under a governing system that imposes and enforces rules. The question is what level of freedom should members of a society have.
Most people will feel stress when forced to act in ways they feel unfair or unjust, those feelings however are taught to us by the society we live in.
People have lived happy and content lives under different levels of social control, many of which would be considered in modern societies as being oppressive and antithetical to important personal freedoms.
Having broad control over the choices a persons makes in their life is not a requirement to achieve happiness, other factors such as working with others to overcome challenges people believe in will have more effect on a person being content with their life.
Freedom as a means to subjugate
The excuse that freedom is important allows those with power to accumulate and act in ways that are detrimental to the rest of the population, for example no limitations on accumulation of wealth can result in increased inequality that places a majority of the population in the position they cannot cover necessities without working what limited jobs are available.
The freedom for people who have power and wealth to control resources, restrict who can benefit from those resources, and charge what they want for those resources, subjugates those who do not have such access.
Control of information allows for manipulation of a population using censorship, people are free to listen to whatever they choose but only certain narratives are broadcast or amplified.
Those with power can give the population the facade of freedom while manipulating circumstances so the population act how the powerful wish.
Weaponization of the state
In a society that allows concentration of power and keeps the population in check by manipulating them into believing they have freedom of choice will create methods to demonize any movement or thought that threatens those with power.
State run media and government employees can be corrupted to express untrue or distorted facts about opponents of the existing power structure, because the population see these sources as respected it turns the population against movements and unjust action to destroy the movement becomes acceptable.
This includes using the government as a tool to eradicate grass roots movements, examples include:
- The FBI in America infiltration anti-war movements to discredit them
- Positions of power censoring well respected doctors and scientists during the covid pandemic
- False-flag events such as the the Reichstag Fire by the Nazis blamed on communists
- Governments giving subsidies to unhealthy industries such as big-agri and enacting policies that suffocate small scale farmers
What should be the limits of freedom
This is a moral decision and should be decided on by the community. If the scientific method is used to achieve the main goals of the community personal behavior that harms attaining those goals could be curtailed through rules.
For example if a community considers it's primary goals to scale and ensure functioning self governance through transparency then privacy might not be allowable, rules could be put in place to extract the most productivity out of members, such as requiring all members to have a strong work ethic, controlling what members can possess, and reducing focus on activities that pull focus away from the communities goals, eg allocated sexual activity and allocated procreation.
Related concepts
- Entering and exiting a community
- Allocation of community resources
- Productive time management
- Strong work ethic
- Allocated sexual activity
- Allocated procreation
- Self governance