About Freedom?
I have been thinking about this concept of freedom for quite sometime now. However, I couldn’t come to a conclusion as to what would freedom means. Though, I do agree that when you ask anyone about his or her opinion on freedom, you get different meanings and connotations for the same concept and that makes it all the more complex. And, the same person would give different explanations at different contexts. So, in effect, we are dealing with a concept of great complexity.
There are whole lots of individuals who talk about freedom of expression, freedom to do what he or she thinks to do, freedom to dress up or dress down? In all these cases, what you could see is that people are generally talking about his or her individual freedom. It looks like, everybody wants to be part of an atmosphere of great freedom, but nobody wants to forgo his or her personal. And therefore, a lot of questions need to be answered. For example: What is freedom exactly, and can it be accurately defined? Is freedom the right to do anything I want - regardless of the impact on anyone else?
Do I have the freedom to?
Enter your house and steal your money?
Smoke marijuana or inject heroin?
Drive at 180 km per hour?
Say anything I like?
Kill someone, if they ask me to?
Answers may vary from person to person and that’s essentially the problem. Some may feel, it’s OK to smoke Marijuana
Here, you can see that people talk about authority “I have the right to do what I want”. Rarely do they talk about ‘right’ with ‘responsibility’. Rarely, they talk about freedom with responsibility
If you ask anyone on the road, he or she may tell you how his /her freedoms have been taken away by forces around him/her. The most interesting thing is that nobody wants to give freedom. Nobody wants to talk about the rights of others around; the neighbors, the society, the state and so on – It looks like, everybody wants to be part of an atmosphere of great freedom, and everybody wants to be part of it nobody is willing to accept others freedom against their own. So, perhaps the most interesting question is, how can you be free, when you don’t want to give freedom to others or How can you enjoy freedom when you don’t allow others to enjoy their freedom? Or their rights?
So, when we talk about freedom, we must realize that it starts with the individual, it starts by giving what a person is asking for. And certainly not by demanding what a person need. Freedom identifies itself as the will to ‘give away’ not by what you accumulate. So, let’s all pledge to give freedom to the people around you, even if with the selfish notion that you want freedom from them.
I have been thinking about this concept of freedom for quite sometime now. However, I couldn’t come to a conclusion as to what would freedom means. Though, I do agree that when you ask anyone about his or her opinion on freedom, you get different meanings and connotations for the same concept and that makes it all the more complex. And, the same person would give different explanations at different contexts. So, in effect, we are dealing with a concept of great complexity.
There are whole lots of individuals who talk about freedom of expression, freedom to do what he or she thinks to do, freedom to dress up or dress down? In all these cases, what you could see is that people are generally talking about his or her individual freedom. It looks like, everybody wants to be part of an atmosphere of great freedom, but nobody wants to forgo his or her personal. And therefore, a lot of questions need to be answered. For example: What is freedom exactly, and can it be accurately defined? Is freedom the right to do anything I want - regardless of the impact on anyone else?
Do I have the freedom to?
Enter your house and steal your money?
Smoke marijuana or inject heroin?
Drive at 180 km per hour?
Say anything I like?
Kill someone, if they ask me to?
Answers may vary from person to person and that’s essentially the problem. Some may feel, it’s OK to smoke Marijuana
Here, you can see that people talk about authority “I have the right to do what I want”. Rarely do they talk about ‘right’ with ‘responsibility’. Rarely, they talk about freedom with responsibility
If you ask anyone on the road, he or she may tell you how his /her freedoms have been taken away by forces around him/her. The most interesting thing is that nobody wants to give freedom. Nobody wants to talk about the rights of others around; the neighbors, the society, the state and so on – It looks like, everybody wants to be part of an atmosphere of great freedom, and everybody wants to be part of it nobody is willing to accept others freedom against their own. So, perhaps the most interesting question is, how can you be free, when you don’t want to give freedom to others or How can you enjoy freedom when you don’t allow others to enjoy their freedom? Or their rights?
So, when we talk about freedom, we must realize that it starts with the individual, it starts by giving what a person is asking for. And certainly not by demanding what a person need. Freedom identifies itself as the will to ‘give away’ not by what you accumulate. So, let’s all pledge to give freedom to the people around you, even if with the selfish notion that you want freedom from them.
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