Freedom's Just Another Word

A friend and I were talking about the strengths and weaknesses of Europe and the U.S., when he happened to use the “f” word. No, the other “f” word. “Free” is a word that comes up frequently in the U.S., often in context of democracy and liberty, but it extends heavily into economics. My friend was referring to the economic kind, as in “free” education, healthcare, and other social net services. At which point it hit me: freedom has to be one of the most prostituted words in the history of mankind.

Semantics is where we often park our words when we’re too busy surviving. The complication is, some words represent the dearest values in our lives – as in “love”, “happiness”, “freedom”, and a few others. We might be able to survive for a while without the presence of those basic values, but we can’t prevail without them. And the difference between surviving and prevailing is too important to dismiss, as William Faulkner once pointed out. Yet it seems we constantly run out of time to understand the true meaning of those words, never mind agree on their significance. So we throw our arms up and agree to disagree, at best, or frequently contradict ourselves. All of this takes a serious toll over time when it comes to the quality of our lives, which… is where that elusive prevailing comes in. It’s all just semantics in the end anyway, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t. Look, I realize most of us manage to not lose much sleep over words. But I'm not talking about the words themselves, I'm trying to point out the force behind them. And if we can agree for a moment that the force behind words like love, happiness and freedom is what we hunger for the most in life, then it might not be so crazy to take a closer look. Seems a bit unorthodox, I'll admit. But challenging our mindset every now and then might be worth a try, considering the upside.

So let's take that mindset back to the word “freedom” for a moment. While the pursuit of freedom is an inalienable right, the pimping of freedom is an unfortunate political manipulation, one which we have allowed to linger for too long. Consider the following observation: the use of the word free in “free market”, to imply that a government does not interfere with price and competition, is a borderline insulting reference to the essence of freedom. A truly free marketplace would be one where everyone has access to it – including the significantly disenfranchised. You can't appropriate the word "free" and then ignore people who can't even touch the marketplace, through no fault of their own (for those who may be need further definition of what "no fault" means, try abused or neglected children and elderly, mentally ill, significant physical handicaps, etc. In the US that count is in the millions, not in the thousands). In that regard, Communism and Capitalism are ironically a negative and positive of the same image: Communism tried (and so far failed) to insure that everyone has limited but equal access to goods and services, with an elite that has unlimited access to the goods. And Capitalism insures the same for the elite, while everyone else has unlimited but unequal access to goods (unequal meaning in some cases none). Meanwhile, nothing in the Socialist middle is free: it is shared by consensus.

These clarifications are not semantics. They are truth-seeking definitions that filter the noise from our perceptions. We can argue politics all day long about which economic paradigms are or should be "free". But it can be far more sobering to challenge conventional wisdoms every now and then. Ask yourself tougher questions. Hell, ask everyone tougher questions. If they kick you out of your church for asking tough questions, you were in the wrong church anyway. As The Lion King's Rafiki would say: look clooser... Freedom is an abstract that we wave around frequently, but it will remain dysfunctionally abstract until we realize what the true driving force is within it. Whichever system you subscribe to, figure out its true meaning first. Don't just defend it blindly, challenge it and make it better. 

We take these very important words and distort them in an endless string of careless arguments, until we render them meaningless. Then we wonder why we’re not happy often enough. Or why meaning eludes us. Or why we’re often in survival mode, where prevailing is just a dream. And I'm not just talking about survival or freedom of the economic kind here... but hey, they're only words. Or not. Your choice. 

Kris and Janis were right: freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose... and nothin' don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free.

....

I Will Prevail

It is clear to me by now that we humans descend from animals, which in turn descend from simpler life forms, which in turn descend from a single element. What has also become clear to me is this: it no longer serves a useful purpose to separate ourselves morally or spiritually from a wolf, from an amoeba, or from hydrogen. Our attempt to create dual and separate realities has reached a saturation point, with no significant value added to our lives.

One of the earliest existential pragmatisms I can think of, addressing our obsession with dualism, is that of the yin yang – the ancient Chinese (Taoist / Daoist) notion that first sought to consolidate the existence of opposite forces in our lives. The basic premise of the yin yang is coexistence: we must learn to live in the balance of good and evil, of right and wrong, and with any other significant but opposite forces in life.

Judaism identified a similar thought process. Rabbi Harold Kushner explains it this way: “Jewish theology teaches that God has planted in us something called the yetzer hara. Loosely translated it’s an ‘evil impulse’, but I don’t like that translation because it implies that God makes things that are evil. It is the egotistical principle, the human capacity for selfishness, for doing things that are not ‘right’. The fascinating thing about that teaching is that you cannot be a complete human being without it. You need an ego to go out and do things, to make things ‘happen’. Had I been given the opportunity I would not have voted for Mother Theresa to represent me in Congress. That’s because you can be a saint, or you can be an effective politician, but you can’t be both. That is not a knock on politicians, it is really a knock on saints.”

While Rabbi Kushner’s explanation of yetzer hara seems to be aligned with the Taoist take on dualism, what’s intriguing to me is the following comment: “I don’t like that translation [“evil impulse”] because it implies that God makes things that are evil.” If I didn’t know better I would say that the good Rabbi is struggling with the notion that we should be trying to balance good and evil. Which brings me to the evolution of yin yang and yetzer hara from the point of view of another major philosophy / religion: Christianity.

Christianity created the mutually exclusive duality of heaven and hell, and, pardon the pun but all hell broke loose. It was one of the most dramatic milestones in our evolution up to that point. The bar had been raised to a seemingly unattainable height. Paradigm shift, game-changer, new rule: the time had come for all good men to choose a single moral ground; you are no longer allowed to lead a double life with yin and with yang. Not to be accused of a cruel and unusual directive, the founding fathers of Christianity offered a paradox “safe house” – a limbo if you will – so that the mere mortal would not self-destruct in an impossible expectation: they called it “original sin”.

So where are we, two-thousand years later? Well, there has been some great thinking in recent times, stemming from a part of the world that is not far from where Taoism began. In fact, I wonder if we are not close to approaching a proverbial full circle. Thought leaders such as the Dalai Lama have declared that the good-evil paradox is not a duality at all. As they see it, existential opposites are part of the same essence. It is not about coexistence, it is about transformation. You don’t have to coexist with evil – in its more mundane form of anger, negativity, greed, selfishness, etc; and you don’t have to renounce it either, unless you want to amputate your soul. What you can do is transform it. You can harness it.

I have come to agree with these new-paradigm gurus. One of our most basic animal instincts, that messy side of us which presumably served a “survival of the fittest” purpose, is not there to be renounced. It is not there for mere coexistence. Not any more than gasoline sits in a fuel tank to coexist with the car. As Rabbi Kushner would say, you need it to do things, to make things happen. I should add, I believe the Rabbi is right about that, but for the wrong reason.

Survival dictates that you choose the dark side over anything that threatens your existence. Coexistence requires that you learn to live with your dark side, in an unsustainable duality. But mere survival and coexistence seem to have fallen short of relevance for me now, when I think about the ultimate pursuit of a higher intelligence. As American author William Faulkner said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Mankind will not merely survive – it will prevail.” I believe the kind of post-survival world that Mr. Faulkner was referring to requires that we successfully harness our dark side into a productive energy. I don't believe he was talking about a world where we add or subtract realities at will, in a zero-sum game. That would be mere survival, or coexistence at best. And the trouble with indefinite coexistence is that it's just a heartbeat away from codependence – a slippery slope back to mere survival.

I suppose like anything else in evolution, soul-searching is the way to start on this journey, should it bite you as well. One thing seems to be holding true for me thus far: once you’ve had a taste for the power of prevailing, any other option seems inadequate.

So survive if you must, and coexist if you can. I have no choice but to prevail.