February 8

Personal and Collective Freedom

It has happened again. A couple of nights ago, shortly after going to bed, I had another realization of a political/social sort. I realized that it is not only individuals who have freedom, but societies as well.

When we think of freedom, we are conditioned to think of it as individual freedom. In particular, we are conditioned to think of freedom as behavioral freedom, the freedom to do what one wants to. The only exception to that may be when we think of "freedom of expression" or "free speech," but even those are behaviors, albeit behaviors which reflect our thoughts and feelings. When I wrote about freedom before, I wrote about behavioral freedom and mental freedom, the freedom to think one's own thoughts and feel one's own feelings. I argued that the mental freedoms were more fundamental than behavioral freedom; without mental freedom, there is no point to having behavioral freedom. I also argued that the mental freedoms are more difficult for others to take away, but at the same time, more subject to subtle restraint.

However, societies have freedom too. That is what democracy -- true democracy, at least -- is all about. People collectively can choose the direction their society takes in a free society. In a not-so-free society, the direction the culture takes is chosen for its citizens, not by its citizens. In a functional democracy, the government is responsive to the collective will of the people. Of course, some people will inevitably disagree with the will of the majority, and sometimes, the majority will make a bad choice; democracy is messy. There also need to be legal limits to the choices which the majority can make; they cannot suddenly decide to execute all gay people, deport all persons of Mexican ancestry, etc. Minorities have rights, too. Ultimately, however, progress will be made. In a non-democracy, those in charge of government decide policy unilaterally, with no chance it will lead to their "firing" by having other leaders chosen in an election.

When I think of the so-called "Tea Baggers," it seems to me just another anti-government counter-revolution being perpetrated by libertarian-minded conservatives. They are against oversized, monopolistic business for sure, but mostly, they are against "big government," especially since the guy they voted against, Barack Obama, is leading that government. Basically, they are against Obama. They are so consumed with fear and loathing, that they fail to think through the ramifications of what they are advocating. They want a society of maximum personal freedom, with minimal government or corporatocracy. However, the only way that is possible, is for each of them, or at most each family, to live on their own little islands. I guess John Donne was wrong when he wrote that "No man is an island," at least according to the Tea Baggers. Thus, we are presented with 3 possibilities. The first is that we break up into a bunch of tiny "island" units, and lose the collective entirely. That is what the Tea Baggers functionally want, as ludicrous as that seems. There aren't enough "islands" in the world for that to happen. The second is that big business runs the show, and effectively uses its money to influence people and pull political strings, using politicians like puppets. That is essentially what our society has currently come to. The third, is that we can recognize that we have a large society with a large population, that needs a large and effective government in order to do the collective will of the people (collective freedom). This is what we should be striving for -- good government which has divested the influence of big money and big business, and through regulation has limited corporations to their proper role as producers of goods and services which enhance people's quality of life, while providing a decent living for all of their employees. As I pointed out in Big Government Versus Big Corporations, the choice in a large society is not between individual freedom and government; rather, it is between corporate control of the collective aspects of society, versus government control of those collective aspects of society. Considering the Tea Bagger movement, their blatant opposition to anything progressive that the Obama administration is trying to accomplish, unwittingly favors the corporate control scenario, which is exactly what the corporatocracy who already controls much of our society wants -- further corporate control.

There is also a relation between collective freedom and individual freedom. In this case, it is the collective freedom which is the more fundamental of the two, in the sense that it is the collective which can best ensure personal freedoms. It is through collective processes that guarantees of personal freedom were written into the Constitution of the United States, for example. We have a tendency to forget that. Societies have representatives get together to enact laws which give citizens rights, that is, personal freedoms. Also, having a civil society with reasonable regulations -- which only good government can provide us -- gives people the freedom from distressing situations, needed to pursue individual freedoms and self-actualization. However, when corporations are pulling the strings behind the scenes to enact the will of the corporate elite, we have only a shadow of a democracy. Actually, what we have currently in the United States is something approaching fascism -- the merging of corporations and state. We now face the prospect of our society becoming even more overtly fascist with the recent Supreme Court decision which allows corporations to openly spend as much money as they want, for political causes. The will of the people is not being carried out if it conflicts with the interests of big business. Even worse, big business is using its influence to propagandize people, influencing their thoughts and feelings so that people's mental freedoms are being limited, without them even being aware of that. However, there is a weakness built into the insidiousness of corporate propagandizing efforts; it only works when people don't realize what is going on. Those of us who are aware of the propagandizing are able to rebel against it. Things can turn around in a hurry in our society, and sooner of later, they will when enough of us realize how we are being manipulated and unduly influenced by corporations who threaten both our collective and individual freedoms. Let us do all we can to make it sooner! I think that is something even the Tea Baggers can appreciate, once they find their wits.