Freedom is a state of mind

Without critical thinking we become nothing but slaves

- HARRY HOPKINS

FREEDOM. What a supercharged word that is. What does it mean? How do we define it? What are its limitations?

How do we square individual freedoms with responsibilities to any given society and community in which we live? Everyone shouts to the rooftops that they want to be free, but do people have any idea what this means? Philosophers and thinkers throughout history have put freedom as one of the mainstays of any given desired system of living together.

But how do we equate freedom with, for instance, corporatism, whereby wealth is desired at the expense and exploitation of others? Or socialism, where ambition and motivation are sapped due to restrictions imposed to serve the state? The irony is that whatever political system one lives under, individual freedom is always challenged. The only difference being the degree to which it actually constrains our lives.

The covid years showed that even in socalled enlightened countries, the very act of choosing how to live can be severely curtailed and restricted at the whim of the state and its agents.

If the government of the day makes a decision for whatever reason, and they frighten people enough, not by the threat of the gulag, but by an allegedly deadly virus or a fictitious climate emergency, people can be controlled and manipulated, and to all intents and purposes lose their freedom.

It seems to me that the biggest threat to an individual's freedom, in whatever system one lives under, is brought about by fear fear of repercussions if you don't conform to the diktats of the state.