Freedom in a free society?
There is freedom and freedom. One likes to talk about ‘freedom,’ as if believing that talking about it is a fair substitute for living it. What in fact happens in free societies is that certain freedoms are being allowed to excess, whereas other freedoms are... disallowed. The 'allowed ones' are morally and intellectually offensive not just because they are allowed, but because they are intellectually inferior, while others, the intellectually superior ones, are being suppressed. The suppression comes in various subtle forms. Few people are ever jailed in free societies for speaking out their mind, but those who do speak it inappropriately are in danger of losing their jobs, their careers, their success-driven positions of prominence and respect in society. Having a pretty good picture of what can be said or done with virtual impunity (and quite often with very explicit encouragement), and what is all but forbidden, most people start exercising their internal self-censorship, incarcerating their last vestiges of free spirit deep inside their mind’s prison cells.
(Hence, my aphorism: in most people’s brains, there are not only white cells and gray cells, but also prison cells, in which they incarcerate their God-given free spirit.)
The golden rule of this first type of freedom in free societies is to stop thinking as an isolated individual, but to find oneself a support group that will defend your rights of saying whatever you like, as long as you say it not as a "loose cannon," but as a clearly identifiable "card-carrying" member of the group which now constitutes your support system, like some kind of “intellectual” labor union. As such, your "free speech" is always conveniently expected and reassuringly pre-approved.
It is the other type of freedom which is the most precious, the one where such prison cells in the brain do not exist. An overwhelming majority of these individuals live in repressive societies, where there are too few, or even none native (that is, not foreign-sponsored), “opposition support systems,” where to channel your inner rebelliousness into. But, albeit rare, there are free spirits in free societies too. Whenever they appear, even if what they say is shocking, they should be treated like the Prodigal Son in the Bible: more welcome than the regular kind, which in our case is the classic example of the heroic standard bearer against oppression and injustice in unfree societies, or the pre-approved and pre-scripted readers of non-majority opinions in the free ones.
But, alas, as I said, these truly free spirits are the rarest of exceptions.
There is freedom and freedom. One likes to talk about ‘freedom,’ as if believing that talking about it is a fair substitute for living it. What in fact happens in free societies is that certain freedoms are being allowed to excess, whereas other freedoms are... disallowed. The 'allowed ones' are morally and intellectually offensive not just because they are allowed, but because they are intellectually inferior, while others, the intellectually superior ones, are being suppressed. The suppression comes in various subtle forms. Few people are ever jailed in free societies for speaking out their mind, but those who do speak it inappropriately are in danger of losing their jobs, their careers, their success-driven positions of prominence and respect in society. Having a pretty good picture of what can be said or done with virtual impunity (and quite often with very explicit encouragement), and what is all but forbidden, most people start exercising their internal self-censorship, incarcerating their last vestiges of free spirit deep inside their mind’s prison cells.
(Hence, my aphorism: in most people’s brains, there are not only white cells and gray cells, but also prison cells, in which they incarcerate their God-given free spirit.)
The golden rule of this first type of freedom in free societies is to stop thinking as an isolated individual, but to find oneself a support group that will defend your rights of saying whatever you like, as long as you say it not as a "loose cannon," but as a clearly identifiable "card-carrying" member of the group which now constitutes your support system, like some kind of “intellectual” labor union. As such, your "free speech" is always conveniently expected and reassuringly pre-approved.
It is the other type of freedom which is the most precious, the one where such prison cells in the brain do not exist. An overwhelming majority of these individuals live in repressive societies, where there are too few, or even none native (that is, not foreign-sponsored), “opposition support systems,” where to channel your inner rebelliousness into. But, albeit rare, there are free spirits in free societies too. Whenever they appear, even if what they say is shocking, they should be treated like the Prodigal Son in the Bible: more welcome than the regular kind, which in our case is the classic example of the heroic standard bearer against oppression and injustice in unfree societies, or the pre-approved and pre-scripted readers of non-majority opinions in the free ones.
But, alas, as I said, these truly free spirits are the rarest of exceptions.
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