FREEDOM

Freedom is not about doing
what you want,
but about doing what you must.
Ramón de Campoamor

Liberty means responsibility.
That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw

Only freedom
which is subject to Truth
leads human beings to true well-being.
Pope John Paul II

Thanks to freedom of speech
today it is possible to say
that a certain politician is a good-for-nothing
and nothing happens.
Neither to us nor to the politician.
Jaume Perich

In his Zarathustra, Nietzsche, with one of those wonderfully precise strokes that every now and then flowed from his pen, points out that there is a big difference between being free “of” something and being free “to” do something. If I ask myself “what am I free « of » ?” I am only inquiring about my hindrances. On the other hand, if I ask “what am I free « to » do?” I am inquiring about my possibilities and opportunities. As you can see, there is clearly a huge difference.

There is something unquestionable from a historical, anthropological, psychological, and even archaeological point of view: human beings are social creatures. Already the most primitive beings of the Homo gender considered by science, individuals who lived dozens of thousands and maybe even millions of years ago, lived in groups. We don’t know about a single culture or civilization made up of isolated individuals. Consider this for just one second: a society of hermits would be impossible, even biologically.

Hermits as loners have always and everywhere been an uncommon phenomenon, far off the statistical average of the species. The solitary man on a deserted island – an allegory so dear to some 19th century writers – is an artificial intellectual abstraction. Rousseau’s “noble savage” is a character that may have many virtues but, look at him as you may, it has a small and irreparable flaw: he never existed.

Therefore, if freedom is to be understood in absolutely socio-political terms, then 10.000 years of known History compel us to conclude that absolute freedom is nothing but a mental construct with no actual reference to any civilization or culture. If we want to conceive freedom in terms of “free of…” – free of coercion, free of oppression, free of exploitation, free of dependence, etc. – then the most we can expect is to achieve a reasonable and justified graduation of precisely the restriction, or limitation, of that absolute freedom. In socio-political terms, absolute freedom simply does not exist. And it does not exist because it cannot exist. It is totally and entirely impossible to build, not to say a society, but even the most elemental human community on the ground of the absolute freedom of each and every one of its members.

The mistake made by all who exaggerate the actual possibilities of socio-political freedom – and that goes without exception for all political doctrines we inherited from 19th century – is to think that there is only a single layer of command in society: the State; and also that there is only one layer of obedience: the People, society; i.e. all the rest. According to this view, the State (or whoever occupies it) commands and everyone else obeys, and supposedly this would explain the entire series of tensions and opposed intentions in that dialectical relationship so dear to Marxists. From this, then, arises the controversy on issues such as how to rule those that rule, why do those who are ruled obey, who grants authority to those who rule, over what domains and to what extent is that authority extended? And a long series of related issues the mere enumeration of which would require a good many pages.

Actually, the whole conception is wrong from the very beginning. No wonder that, of course, the discussion that derives from it quickly drifts into pure abstraction, if not into a utopian irrationality impossible to build in the real world. And it is wrong mainly because it is incomplete. A civilized society of human beings is never as childishly simple as the socio-political theories of 150 years ago conceived it. In fact, one of our main problems is that we keep dragging along those theories and, after various very debatable attempts to update them, and in the 21st century we still insist on trying to rule Society with those more than outdated preconceptions.

The truth is that in every society with a certain level of complexity, there is a huge number of people who command and obey at the same time. Even in relatively simple tribal societies made up of only some hundred members, we can see how the chieftain may command – and he actually does in certain circumstances. But only in certain circumstances; because in others he follows closely the advice of the tribe’s medicine man. And the elders, who obey in certain matters, then gather in Council and make decisions that the entire community will follow.

In our post-modern societies the picture is not as different as many often suppose. When the doctor diagnoses the mechanic with an illness and prescribes  specific medication, the mechanic obeys: he goes to the drugstore, buys the medication and follows the treatment. But when the doctor’s car stops running it is the mechanic who repairs the breakdown and advises the doctor on how best to avoid breaking the same part again. And now it is the doctor who obeys the mechanic.

There are similar examples by the dozen. The Corporate manager makes decisions and commands within the Company, but on the street he will have to obey the instructions of the traffic police. The police officer may command on the streets, but he will have to obey the sergeant who is his superior. The sergeant will command the police officer, but he will obey the judge. The judge will dictate sentence and put a criminal in jail, but he will obey the laws enacted by the legislator. The legislator will enact laws, but the day his tooth starts hurting he will do well in following the dentist’s advice. The dentist can be really bossy at his job, but at home maybe it is his wife who calls the shots…

Is there any point in going further? It is obvious that we could fill pages and more pages with examples to show that even in the freest society you can imagine, at the end of the day we all end up commanding and obeying at the same time.

However, the scenario changes completely if we stop considering freedom as a right, or as a privilege that makes us “free of” bondage or dependency, and we start considering it as a power that enables us to access certain options, possibilities or opportunities.

Some might be surprised, but by this criteria society increases our individual liberties, as opposed to the previous approach that assumes them to be restricted by social bondage. And this for a very simple reason: association multiplies the possibilities of an individual. When overall possibilities increase, the available options and alternatives increase correspondingly. In this way we find that the member of a society is freer than the isolated individual, because he has more opportunities to choose from. Society offers a much wider range of options than the ones available for a person living alone on a deserted island.

At this point we run into something that I fancy calling the “Crusoe Paradox”.

Robinson Crusoe – that typically British version of the man-alone-in-a-deserted-island – was less free than any of his contemporary Europeans. This fictional character, lonely, lost in an uninhabited island, with only a native servant at his disposition (a British gentleman without at least one native servant is unthinkable, even in fiction), had less possibilities of real option and action than any of his contemporaries who lived in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin or Rome. The ideal Robinson Crusoe could lay down to sleep wherever he wanted, but outdoors, exposed to rain and even to ants. He could have a hut, but he had to build it himself without nails, hardware, curtains or glass. Just imagine the problem posed by a simple door hinge on a deserted island. And bear in mind that he would have been forced to fall down a tree – without sophisticated tools – to get the wood for that door. True: he could have sailed; but he would have had to build himself a ship without even dreaming of having brass, sails, varnish, or wood that did not come from the trees of his lonely island.

The depiction of this ideal Robinson Crusoe might seem very romantically free to some dreamy spirits, but the fact is that the man could have died in just a couple of days from a simple appendicitis. Look at it from wherever you want, twist it around as much as you like: in terms of real options and possibilities, Crusoe was by far less free than any of us today.

Keeping this in mind, it is now possible to understand and define freedom in terms of self-sufficiency or independence.

We are free as long as we have real alternatives of choice and we can actually choose among them. The example I have used many times to show the point is: if my culture has not developed the airplane, what advantage do I get from the fact that no one forbids me to fly? Without airplanes I will not be free to fly even if no one forbids it. But, reciprocally, if my culture has developed airplanes but airlines charge for tickets an amount that I simply cannot afford, then I end up in the same situation. In that case I still do not have real freedom to fly; even if it is not forbidden, even if in the Constitution there happens to be somewhere a paragraph expressly granting me the right to fly whenever and wherever I want to.

Let us summarize: freedom is not a right somebody grants nor a license an authority may give. It is a power you effectively can exert. I am free to do or to be something as much as I effectively can do it, or be it. The rest is literature.

Now, the options and alternatives that a society can offer do not fall on it from heaven. They are created, built, constructed, and manufactured. And the builders are the very members of that society. Today, we have the ability to fly, not because of a gift from the gods of Olympus, but thanks to the effort, the work and the talent of men like Otto von Lilienthal and the Wright brothers – among many, many others. We have the ability to cure many diseases thanks to men like Pasteur, Koch, Salk, Favaloro and so many others. We have the possibility of having electricity thanks to Gilbert, Otto von Guericke, Volta, Faraday, Ampere, Edison and many more. Our present possibilities are merely objectives accomplished by our forefathers.

By the way, just because of this I believe we thus owe more respect and gratitude than what we are paying them today.

Be as it may, the beauty about all of this is that – perhaps to a lesser degree than great inventors, innovators, creators and discoverers – all of us can contribute to that process by pursuing our objectives to the extent of our capacities. If we do useful work, consciously and well, directly or indirectly we might be contributing to the availability of greater and better options for all of us as well as for the coming generations.

And this does not necessarily mean that we have to settle for lesser accomplishments. To begin with, it is absolutely unarguable that the vast majority of great inventions and discoveries ended up being possible due to small innovations or improvements which, by themselves, may have seemed modest, but without them, the great accomplishment would have been practically impossible. The internal combustion engine would never have been developed if seemingly modest devices – such as the crankshaft, the gear or the pulley – had not have been invented before. On the other hand, Dante Alighieri might have the unquestionable merit of writing the Divine Comedy. Many times however, I wondered if he could have written it by scratching on clay tablets like the Sumerians did. Let’s agree: it would have been rather troublesome without ink and paper. And besides, who took care of doing Dante’s laundry? Who cooked for him? Who took care of him when he was sick? The person refilling his ink pot did not contribute in some of way to the Divine Comedy? Is it not a bit unfair that we do not know the names of all those who, in different ways, contributed to make that great work of art possible at all?

Quite likely it is. It is quite possible that sometimes fame and justice travel on different highways. Anyhow, the fact remains that all of us contribute – or at least can contribute – to the increase of available options and, through this, to the increase of our true scope of freedom.

And the best of all is that, at that rate and considering all we have said so far, we certainly can be independent. Because, in this sense, being independent no longer means doing entirely without others. We have already seen that this is impossible even in small communities. From this point of view, being independent, simply means not being a burden on others. It means not living at the expense of others. True and real independence is about not being a parasite of others’ work, giving absolutely nothing in return.

It is true that in a society as complex as ours, actually possible independence is limited if we are to consider it in absolute terms. Even the most “independent” professional or free lancer works for one or several clients and he depends on the assignments he can get from them as much as from the money they pay him for his services. And, trust me, from my own experience I can say: a hysterical client who does not know what he wants can be ten times worse than the most unbearable of employers.

The question then, is not if we are independent free lancers or just employees. In one way or another we are all “hired”, and the independence about which employees sometimes dream of is mere illusion, at least to a large extent. It is not true that being an independent professional you can organize your life the way you please, work whenever and as much as you want, or take holidays at leisure. All that is pure fantasy. Clients impose meetings at specific times; sometimes they require impossible deadlines; in the middle of the project they change their requirements twenty times; they pay whenever they want, and if you are not there when they need you, by the time you are back from your holidays they have given the job to someone else and you have one client less in your portfolio. Independence as imagined by some people is nothing but wishful thinking that reality very soon dispels.

However, even so and in spite of all this, there is an independence that is possible and real. It is the independence of those who have deep and thorough knowledge of their trade or profession; of those who are really good at what they do and consequently have earned solid prestige. This kind of people will always have a job. Of course: they will have their ups and downs; they will go through crisis and times of better bounty. There is nothing in the world that can effectively grant you a life without troubles. But those who are good at what they do will always be able to provide for their needs without being a burden for others.

Because excellence awards independence and enables you to earn what you own by your own effort.

We cannot be free or independent by violating our own nature as social beings, or by breaking the most fundamental rules that enable social life in the first place. But we can achieve it by respecting these factors and by building our lives in pursuit of our own objectives, without depending on what others can spare, or stealing others’ work in order to survive.

Freedom is not a right to be claimed or demanded. Ultimately, it does not even make much sense to try to guarantee it by law. Freedom is a power nobody gives away as a gift.

As Goethe said: “He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew”.