The Impossibility of Freedom - Attempting to Exist No.1

Jean Jacques Rousseau said that humanity is “born free, and everywhere (they are) in chains.” However, I’d like to question whether that statement is true or false. First, it is necessary to understand what the term “freedom” really means. The word “freedom” comes from the Germanic word frijadōm which is considered to mean “the state of being free, of not being imprisoned or enslaved” or “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.”

If we break down the definitions, the first one, being “not imprisoned or enslaved” is mainly a matter of physical freedom. It is the fact that a person’s physical location and actions cannot be controlled by another. Whether this authority over one’s actions is justified or not is not considered to be a factor in one’s state of freedom. As imprisonment is widely known to be a legitimate form of confiscating one’s freedom by the power law, enslavement (types of slavery that are not bound by law with the goal of being a part of imprisonment or punishment such as the enslavement mentioned in the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution) is surely an illegitimate one, showing that legitimacy is not something that is considered in the definition. The definition basically sees that if a person can move freely on Earth, they are free. 

The second definition is based more on the person’s mind and what the thoughts in one’s mind lead to. The individual must be allowed to think whatever they think, speak whatever they wish to speak, and act in whichever way they wish to act. The word “act” is a bit more ambiguous than other terms given in the two definitions, however, due to the nature of the definition, it can be said that it mostly relates to the actions people take according to their minds, not physical bodies. Although this is considered to be an ultimate form of freedom in terms of freedom of thought and freedom of speech, however, it is now becoming a general understanding that our words and thoughts affect others and we are responsible for the effect that we have on individuals through our words and thoughts. So, considering that it has been established in law and philosophy that a person’s freedom to act is limited to the point where they intersect another person’s liberties, this definition gives an exaggerated form of freedom as expressing thoughts and actions that cross the lines of others’ rights are not rights at all. This means that individuals are not free to insult, verbally, or physically attack others - which is technically included in a statement that reads “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants” - as it breaches others’ liberties as well. If I were to give a radical example, the ideology of extreme nationalism, possibly crossing over the territory of fascism, is most surely a view that has been supported by many in the past; however, due to the fact that the view and historical acts fueled by it intrinsically infringe upon basic human rights. A person may be free to act however they want, but such freedom extends only to the point where the results of the actions are considered unacceptable by society, or just objectively wrong and detrimental to other individuals. This idea, given by the second definition, that a person can speak however they wish to speak is misleading for the individual since it is certain that not exactly “all” ideas and words are within a person’s authority to think or say without receiving backlash that is mostly backed by logical thinking.

Now, having understood the general thought processes of the two major definitions of freedom, we may proceed to why they lack the full understanding of what freedom really means. The most significant driving force behind these definitions is the state of “not being bound.” To elaborate, the aforementioned definitions of freedom suggest that the ideal form of freedom is that there is not an external force that bounds the actions of the individual whether physical or mental. The idea is that no individual can limit another individual’s thoughts, ideas, actions, and physical movement, however, the idea of boundaries set by one’s self is not considered in these definitions. Even if we get rid of all outside authority, even if we are able to say and do whatever we want, we are bound to two things that we cannot escape from: the consequences of our actions, and the opportunity costs of our decisions.

First, we are bound to the consequences of our actions. This is pretty self-explanatory as it is something that any person can observe on a daily basis. Similar to the logical backlash that we may receive for what we have said or done I mentioned when talking about the second definition of freedom, every action that we take in our lives has a consequence. This thought can be expressed as consequentialism. Consequentialism is the idea that all actions have results and the morality of the actions is decided upon according to the effects of the results. The main conflict within consequentialism is deontology v. teleology (which encompasses utilitarianism v. Kantian ethics) which focuses on whether the morality/intention of the act itself or the result of the action is more important. I will not be going into further detail on the nature of the morality concept in this case as it is irrelevant to our topic, but if you are interested, I’d advise you to read philosophers like Niccolò Machiavelli and Jeremy Bentham for further understanding. If we get back to our topic, the consequences of our actions have an effect on the morality of our actions and they have an effect on our future as well. To understand the concept of consequentialism in simpler terms, think of the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect states that a butterfly’s wings may lead to a change in the atmosphere that could possibly lead to a tornado or possible air current. Step by step, the small effects of the butterfly’s wings lead to many different changes in the atmosphere and consequently end up in something much different than what was thought of at first. The notion here is that all actions lead to another and have effects on their environment; consequences. Let’s give an example of the idea of actions leading to consequences: imagine you are in a basketball match, sprinting to defend against a shot by the player in the offense. They take their shot, you jump to block it, however, you hit them and the referee calls a foul. You have made the decision to jump toward the offensive player in hopes of stopping their shot, but it ended in you fouling them which is the consequence of your decision, therefore, not being successful in your attempt.  Now, you are ultimately bound to the fact that your decision to jump led to you giving the opponent two shots at the free-throw line. You are responsible for the decision you have made and the action you have taken. This responsibility has bound you to change your future action according to your past such as not jumping next time, or being held accountable by others because your decision affected people around you; such a situation can arise where your teammates talk to you to fix your lack of defensive skills next time. Following the basic principle that individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions, these two outcomes would be most likely, and they would both result in one having to change their course of action in the future. This leads to the individual being bound by the results of their decisions since they had to change their future decision-making according to said results. 

Opportunity cost is the second internal boundary that we can discuss. The term opportunity cost is mostly used in economics as the “second-best thing that is foregone.” For example, a student has two choices before test day. One is to study and the other is to watch a series or movie on Netflix. If the student opts to study, they get the benefit of better grades but give up the entertainment presented by Netflix and vice versa. What the student gives up in this scenario is their opportunity cost. You may ask, how does this relate to freedom? It is the fact that every decision we make in our lives is a matter of opportunity cost. Every time we opt to gain something, we lose something else. Some even say that the loss of option two is what makes option one valuable. That is another case, however, it is certain that in order to get option one, we must give up option two. We cannot experience all possibilities of one instance of our lives at once due to the nature of our universe. Even if we were able to experience all possibilities at once and we do that, we give up the option of not experiencing anything at all. Every action we take is a matter of giving up another possible action, another possible reality, another possible benefit. We cannot do everything all at once, nor can we do nothing all at once, or both at once. This idea of giving up an alternate reality means that we lose the liberty to act a certain way every time we make a new decision. When you become a soldier, you give up the liberty of being more with your family since you will be deployed. When you study in college, you give up the liberty of joining the workforce at an earlier age. I can list many more examples of giving up liberties due to the nature of making decisions. This argumentation does not in any way claim that decisions are a bad thing, however, it does prove that the way decision-making works forces us to give up freedom to gain something else. Now, considering that the idea of “decisions” limits our liberties and that our life is made up of decisions (even the event of not making any decisions is a decision in itself, so I think we can assume this is true), can we ever claim that we are truly and totally free?

Having thoroughly examined the definitions of freedom and adding a newer understanding of what it means to be free, we can inspect Rousseau’s quote. To remind ourselves, Rousseau said that we are born free but we have been chained everywhere. He uses this sentence in his famous The Social Contract and relates it to a more social and political understanding, but I will attempt to examine it in an individualistic manner to provide answers about freedom to individuals, not governments. Let’s go over the quote itself to understand and investigate it.

Rousseau’s idea of being free is actually fairly simple. It is similar to the definition that reads “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.” Rousseau believes that in an ideal setting, people should be able to act in whichever way they wish. This is a rather social understanding since Rousseau’s aim is to ensure that all citizens of a society have the necessary civil rights to act in accordance with their own beliefs. We had already concluded that people do not have the liberty to act in socially unacceptable ways or to follow objectively detrimental ideals in a social setting. Rousseau’s “social contract” is also set to establish these socially unacceptable actions through the strength of civil society. So, the framework for the protection and limitation of civil liberties will be set by a common will according to Rousseau, and release citizens from their chains. These chains are the unjustified ideals imposed by an undemocratic society. Considering the time in which Rousseau lived, during the Enlightenment Age, explains this understanding well. Rousseau aimed to get rid of the undemocratic superstitions and traditions of society and create a civil society. So, the quote he uses means that humans are born with rights and the freedom to act however they want, however, the society they live in limits their liberties.

This understanding is acceptable according to the definitions he used for “born free” and “chains,” but it is lacking for the state of the individual. Already having stated that internal boundaries that humans establish on themselves are not considered in the current understanding of freedom, we can claim that humans are not actually born free. From the moment we are born, we are faced with decisions that we have to make, and the consequences they bring us. The nature of being a human, and living in the confines of this universe, causes us to never have a real sense of freedom. Our chains are the decisions we make, the consequences we face, and the opportunities we give up. These chains are far more severe and crucial than the ones that Rousseau mentions. Losing the possibility of a reality we may encounter for a choice that we think will give us a better reality with no certain result is a part of our nature, our destiny. With every decision we make, we lose something, hoping to gain something else. But, there is nothing that ensures that we will gain that something else, even if we do, there is nothing that ensures the consequences we’ll face, the responsibilities we’ll have. So, our nature does not allow us to be free, ever. We can use this quote for our individuality, but the implications of the words used will have to be different because we have chains that we cannot escape, unlike Rousseau’s chains. 

Rousseau was able to find a way to help us escape the external limitations that may try to make us slaves to their ideals, however, how will we escape our internal limitations that only ensure that we will be slaves to them? If we cannot free ourselves from our own boundaries, should we not try to at least choose what kind of slaves we’ll be?