FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

(This is a continuation of the previous entry Freedom Of Political Correctness.)

Having briefly quoted from Schopenhauer’s Parerga and Paralipomena in the last entry, now is the time to quote the same passage at greater length:

“All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be its tone. A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom. For, it is only when he is alone that he is really free. Constraint is always present in society, like a companion of whom there is no riddance; and in proportion to the greatness of a man’s individuality, it will be hard for him to bear the sacrifices which all intercourse with the others demands, Solitude will be welcomed, or endured, or avoided, according as a person’s personal value is large or small--- the wretch feeling, when he is alone, the whole burden of his misery; the great intellect delighting in its greatness; and everyone, in short, being just what he is.” (Councils and Maxims: Chapter II Section 9.)

This remarkable passage, like any Schopenhauer essay, is a gold mine for several explorations, particularly, into the heart of the notion of freedom. It is from the previously discussed notion of social restraint (see my entry Freedom of Political Correctness) that the unexpected yet perfectly logical conclusion about freedom as such follows, and to highlight that conclusion, I have taken the liberty of underlining the most significant sentence in this passage, as it becomes the core of the present entry.

"…For, it is only when he is alone that he is really free."

Let me make this clear: I am not in favor of escaping from society into the desert, for the sake of attaining a satisfactory degree of personal freedom. The desert does not make one free: although presumably free from society, one becomes dependent on the elements, and his basic needs can only be met by a compromise with nature and perhaps inevitably with the society left behind. Practically every membrum ordinis eremitarum is still necessarily dependent in some way upon civilization, in other words, on society, and to suggest that one is capable of becoming a hermit in the absolute sense of the word smacks of sheer hypocrisy, unless we are not supposed to take the meaning of hermit that far.
Having thus disposed with the hermit as a hyperbole, we are left with the hermit as a metaphor, and here the meaning of the Schopenhauer passage finally becomes clear. Unless one is capable of spending a couple of hours alone by oneself without getting bored, but rather enjoying this experience and even eager to repeat it, one is probably not ready to absorb the meaning of the concept of freedom. Otherwise, the case is surely hopeless.
...Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong in liking company. I used to like company (and still do), especially of family, friends and of people with whom I had things in common. But, at the same time, I never felt miserable just by myself. Thus, it all boils down not to the question: Do you like company?, but to the question whether you hate being alone? Paradoxically, in the freest country on earth, most Americans I’ve known, either directly or indirectly, hate being alone. There is an inordinate desire on their part to participate in all sorts of public activities, which reaches the point of compulsion. (Today this also includes watching television, surfing the internet, and the newest friend of the lonely, texting.) Unlike my experience in the Soviet Union, where mass public events were usually regarded as a nuisance, and ordinarily shunned, if it could be helped; in America I have found a much more voluntary collectivism on the part of the individuals, which I find not a little bit surprising, considering that individualism of free societies has traditionally, even in Russia, been contrasted to the socialistic-communistic collectivism, which, come to think of it, exists only in nationalistic and generally patriotic events, whereas in America, collectivism mostly exhibits itself in partisan affairs, or special interest events (like various ethnic celebrations, marches, or gay parades, etc.), or most commonly in all sorts of “feel-good” gatherings of no particular purpose or significance, except to avoid the frightening alternative of being alone.

…Ugh! I feel that I may have been too unkind in generalizing my personal experience of America. For the sake of objectivity, I invite all American readers of this posting to comment on it, by specifically addressing the question: “Can you ever be happy by yourself?”