Individual Freedoms and Why They Matter
Individual Freedoms and Why They Matter
In the civilization we are living in, individual freedoms have seldom come without paying a high price. They have been fought for, suffered for and died for. Authoritarian powers and personalities eager to suppress others and force their control over them, have always despised free men aware of their natural freedoms and rights and in charge of their own affairs.
Such tendencies are far from being left to the past. 21st century is witnessing a new rise of a belief that state authority is superior to individual choices, and intervention from power groups (both state and corporate) is indispensable in solving the problems of humankind. More restrictions and top-down subordinations are advocated to achieve progress ‘in saving the planet’, while health decisions are being mandated ‘for the greater good’. Mainstream groupthinking is increasingly used for swaying the prevailing mindsets and restricting free speech, being driven by specific interests and ideologies. Those that do not run with the majority, often wind up stigmatized or even expelled from public life, fired from their jobs etc. It is as though very little has been learnt from the tragedies of the previous century.
Technological advancements have offered numerous benefits for the functioning of our practical lives, but they have also opened new horizons for authoritarian rulerships that willingly use them to magnify their own pursuits. In the 21st century, over 1.5 billion people are still living under communist regimes – a doctrine that has a track record of exterminating more than 100 million people in different countries over the last 100 years. Communist China is fast embracing the possibilities offered by modern technology to further strengthen its grip over its subjects and neutralize the critics and opponents of its inhuman regime.
A critical thinker can hardly agree with the likes of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), who predicted that individualism and individual freedoms will remain a brief moment in history before science finds a way to manage and control everyone. Through so-called cultural engineering, this could create a world that would lie beyond freedom and dignity.1 Nor can one find comfort for instance in futurist Ray Kurzweil, who predicted that humans will soon merge with machines, resulting in a world devoid of distinctions between biological and mechanical, or physical and virtual realities. Technology will outweigh human wisdom, solve the problems of humanity and the planet and drive us to eradication of disease, towards prosperity and happiness.2
Such a mechanical and simplictic view of mankind is forgetful of the unique individual character of every human being, our immense potential for self-realization and exercising free will. As psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) has noted - man is not a machine that one can reconstruct in the hope that it will then proceed to function, in a totally different way, just as normally as before.3
To Seneca (4 BC-AD 65), freedom meant to not be a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance.4 However, achieving such profound inner freedom needs to be facilitated by personal freedoms secured for the individual, as an outright duty of the collective, by the entire state and society.
The freedom of each man is limited by everybody’s equal right to that same inviolable freedom. Freedoms in life exist hand in hand with the responsibility to use them. Meanwhile, the call for behaving "responsibly", "for the society" and "for the greater good" has been repeatedly abused by various powers of our present civilization in order to argue for and enforce limitations on freedoms and civic rights. Responsible behaviour can only be raised gradually through education and raising people's awareness, while freedoms can be wiped out or curbed instantly in a blink of a tyrant's eye. Therefore, our basic freedoms deserve a constant watchful attention to keep them guarded against the restricting desires of the collective and the state.
It is our firm conviction that individualism and with it the very idea of individual freedoms will not disappear. Individual freedoms lie at the very core of humanity and are part of the basic laws of life. They are a value to be fought for, in distinct awareness that repression of freedoms is nowadays carried out in an ever more complex and sophisticated manner. Limiting access to public services, cancelling careers, performing acts of character assassination and public ostracism of those that do not comply with promoted views is usually preferred over more brutal ways used by authoritarian regimes and power groups in our past.
Six freedoms particularly stand out in our present state of affairs that deserve special attention:
freedom of thought,
freedom of speech,
academic freedom,
freedom of choice in healthcare,
freedom from data collection and surveillance,
freedom over one's personal way of life.
1 B.F.Skinner "Walden Two" (1948) and "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971)
2 R.Kurzweil "Reinventing humanity: The future of human-machine intelligence" (2006): https://www.kurzweilai.net/reinventing-humanity-the-future-of-human-machine-intelligence
3 C.J.Jung "Psychological Types" (1921), Chapter X, p 424. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm
4 Seneca "Letter LI: On Baiae and Morals"