What is Freedom Even About 💔

Everyone loves freedom. It’s on bumper stickers, posters, and it is also my excuse to eat cereal for lunch. After all it’s a “free” country isn't it?  America is called “the land of the free” (free shipping is usually included as well” but I would argue that it is the most misunderstood concept.

In class, we were asked to read Civil Disobedience and The Swimmer. The two essays presented two different ideas to me. The former tells us to “be a friction” to the government while the latter tells us that we should just go with the flow.

However, before I dig deeper, I’d like to address some problems I have with Civil Disobedience

that I have to get it out(feel free to skip to the next paragraph.) First, how can you say that the power should be put in the minority? I promise you if that was the case the world would be over already. Did Mr. Thoreau even think about what groups are part of the minority? The minority could be a hate group for all you know (that would end pretty badly won’t it?) Secondly, there is no sense of calling for the removal of the government. Without a government, nothing is regulated. If everyone acted on self-interest, the strongest voices would be the ones in power, resources would be hoarded, and chaos would replace order. Even the most basic systems—like
currency or property rights—would lose meaning. Finally, Mr. Thoreau believed that people as a collective group acted based on their morals, the people would be better off. However, even the slave owners said that what they were doing was right and was “an order by god.” If their morals were so different than what is actually right, how can we trust that morals will be correct later?

Anyways, all that talk about friction got me thinking about physics. Friction slows things down, creates heat, and is the reason why pencils write and the reason why we can walk. Too much friction, however, and things start to wear out, burn out, and give out. Flow on the other hand, is smooth and continues, and it carries things forward. Just going with the flow, however, might cause a loss of direction.

When we were asked to respond to the prompt on how to achieve freedom, I thought that surely it was a case of both. When there are unjust laws, we need friction to change, but when things are going smoothly, we should just let some things go and move forward. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe freedom doesn’t even exist. This might sound bonkers to some of you but really think about it. Sure, we have freedom of speech (at least I thought we did), freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc., but these are only freedom of _____. We do not have freedom in its entirety. Absolute freedom would mean I could(even if I shouldn’t) say anything, do anything, go anywhere, without restriction. But that type of freedom would backfire. My “freedom” to play my music at 3 a.m on full blast conflicts with my neighbor’s freedom to sleep. Laws exist because pure freedom is impossible in a shared world. What we really have is negotiated freedom: balanced “freedoms” that allow people to co-exist without clashing. 

At the end of the day, humans are bound by physical, moral, and legal limits. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Situations are constantly changing and it is up for the majority to decide on friction or go with the flow (take that Thoreau).