Just
how free are we? The short answer has to be unprecedentedly
free since we are the only species on the planet capable of
exercising freedom of choice. However, we duly note, as it
concerns the most important event of our lives – where
we are born – we do not choose the place that provides
the grid for the political, economic and cultural environment
in which we are raised. So on the one hand, it is Sir William’s
good fortune to be born into plenty in England, while the
luck of the draw has Ravi being born in a squatter’s
colony in the outskirts of Delhi. Thus speaks the luck of
the draw.
Determinism,
the doctrine that argues that all human action is underwritten
by causes external to human will, collapses in the real world
where human transaction consists in having to choose on matters
large and small, from the number of children we want to the
kinds of food we consume, and in our leisure time, choosing
to read a novel instead of watching the Gong Show, or deciding
to play poker instead of tennis. And yet according to a Scientific
American survey up to 40% of the surveyed respondents
believe in determinism.
Eighteenth
century thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau, from the famous opening
lines of The Social Contract (1762) writes: "Man
is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau
was referring to modern man who, for the sake of a more orderly
and secure existence, forwent the happiness and freedom he
experienced in the state nature. The chains in Rousseau’s
opening salvo accuse our systems of governance which, with
our consent, restrain our desires and behaviour. As Rousseau
would have it, we are free to choose to be less free.
The
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed that Rousseau had
only scratched the surface of what he believed was man’s
schizophrenic relationship with the concept of freedom and
free will. In 1882, based on the observable repetitions in
human history, he introduced (The Gay Science, 1881)
the notion of “the eternal recurrence of the same,”
inferring that Rousseau’s infamous chains fail to identify
what is untameable in the human spirit, and that the constants
in human history force the conclusion that the artificial
constraints man imposes (government places on the individual)
on his behaviour are powerless against human nature –
and thus the recurrence of the same, in particular, territorial
conflicts.
In
Civilization and its Discontents (1929), Freud sides
with Rousseau and concludes that man’s innate aggressivity
(bellicosity) is hamstrung by his institutions and their statutes
and laws which renders him unhappy and neurotic. He then proposes
that the individual resorts to three means to temporarily
relieve himself of his neurosis: through distraction (attending
a sporting event, game-playing etc.), sublimation through
the arts (especially music but also painting and writing),
and intoxication (a favourite drink and/or drug of the day).
But Freud forgot to mention the biggie, to what Nietzsche
alludes in the previous paragraph in the formulation of “the
eternal recurrence of the same.” What we learn from
history is that war -- that immaculate constant among the
constant turnover of human populations -- has been the prime
mover of history, and that all wars, ideology notwithstanding,
are territorial. Since the faculty of choice is the man’s
distinguishing attribute/feature, prior to every war ever
waged, he could have chosen not to wage it. Which begs the
question: in light of the fact that there has always been
a next war, what does the condition of war satisfy such that
choosing not to go to war has zero purchase?
Of
the 3,400 years of human history, only 268 of them have been
peaceful. According to Wikipedia, there have been
10,624 battles in the history of mankind. Another source (Conway
W. Henderson) estimates that 14,500 wars have taken place
between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion
lives, leaving only 300 years of peace.
In
the modern era, to qualify as a legitimate war, a minimum
of a 1000 lives must be lost. So not included in the already
bloated (indictable, shameful) stats are the thousands, if
not tens of thousands of massacres and mini pogroms (when
a tribe eliminates every man, woman, child of another tribe)
that haven’t been registered in the ever-expanding book
of the massacred. And while the numbers vary according to
the source, there can be no doubting of man’s unrelenting
and apparently unreformable bellicosity. Not unlike the sweet
tooth, war is in the bloodstream and it speaks through every
generation; and what every generation must learn anew is that
we don’t learn what history teaches: that civilization,
its elegant laws and heavy-handed injunctions, is no match
against the imperatives of human nature.
So
how free are we? In respect to the most recent conflagrations
the whole world is watching 24/7, turning us all into unwitting
participants in the war of the ratings, did Hamas choose to
invade Israel, did Putin choose to invade Ukraine or are they
simply instruments of desires and passions over which they
have no control, which would mean they are not free, a notion,
a viewpoint no leader would truck? Which is why, without exception,
all wars are preceded by an elaborate rationale used to justify
what human nature bids. “For the sake of the people”
is the favourite alibi of tyrants observes Albert Camus.
In
African Genesis, Robert Ardrey proposes that “We
are the sons of Cain,” the killer of Abel. And from
The Territorial Imperative, “What could not
be denied was that in vast segments of the animal world natural
selection of the most qualified individuals took place not
by competition for females but by competition for space.”
Both references speak to the supremacy of human nature --
our intransigent combativeness and lust for territory -- and
the minor role of reason when push comes to shove.
That
all modern nations enshrine free choice but apparently cannot
choose not to go to war, must surely constitute one of the
great contradictions, antinomies of the species. We convince
ourselves (self-propagandize) that reason, which appeals to
ideology, is calling the shots, when in fact reason’s
role is strictly servile, playing second fiddle to human nature.
Has there ever been a war that has not been waged over territory?
It
seems that in respect to the relatively inconsequential aspects
of our lives, choosing one film genre over another, one food
over another, a classic over a detective novel, we are in
fact free: we are making a choice. But as it concerns the
major events in our lives, the majority of them are not subject
to human willing. Yes, a mother can refuse to suckle her new
born but as a practical matter, her behaviour is pre-determined.
Yes, to a certain extent, depending on proclivity and talent,
the individual can choose a career among several options,
but in respect to the various pyramids of life he finds himself
in (corporate, athletic) he doesn’t choose to want to
excel, to fight his way to the top, to want to succeed, be
admired and respected.
If we are to qualify to what extent or degree we are free,
it must always be in consideration of the activity or pursuit.
Certain aspects of our behaviour are genetically determined
(defending personal property) while others are strictly subject
to environmental pressures (fashion).
Human
beings are territorial and there is no circumventing or squashing
the gene sequence that prefigures it. So we need not ask if
there will come a time when the next war won’t be waged.
Not a chance in hell, which just happens to be the place man
has been creating and inhabiting for as long as he has been
king of the beasts. And as history tells it, when man has
been away from the hells of his own making for too long, he
begins to feel decomposed, out of sorts, which is why every
generation has to get its territorial war out of its system.
During our lifetime, we’ll be either involved in or
be following at least three major wars.
I
remember as a kid growing up in Moose
Jaw, Saskatchewan wanting to be a professional
baseball player. But I wasn’t good at it. If most of
us end up doing what we are good at, or not doing what we
do poorly, how free are we? Are gifted people free or hostage
to their exceptional abilities? In those rare instance where
vocation and avocation are in perfect alignment, it can be
argued that these very fortunate individuals would have chosen
their career had it not been (genetically) chosen for them.
But for most of us, we end up doing what we are good at whether
we like it or not, and this is especially true of people who
aren’t good at anything, who can be bent into any serviceable
shape in respect to the many mundane tasks required of orderly
community life (waste disposal, green space upkeep, snow removal
etc).
But
however hostage we are in respect to human nature, we can
to an uncertain extent reach out into those domains where
we are not free, and through the power of mind (reason), develop
our mental faculties such that powers once strictly subject
to human nature can be subject to human willing. Freedom isn’t
a fixed category or quantity; some people are more naturally
disposed to exercising freedom of choice, others work it harder.
Freedom
and choice can be taught and cultivated, and when the reasons
we provide conform to human values that everyone can embrace
(choosing to eat healthy; to resolve differences through debate
over violence), we need not succumb to the neurosis predicted
by Freud, nor the next lethal conflict. However, we must distinguish
between self-imposed individual and societal restrictions
and these same restrictions imposed from without. If human
willing is to prevail and endure in situations normally ruled
by human nature, the pedagogy upon which that transcendental
outcome is scaffolded must be allowed to evolve and articulate
its mission as well as its limits. And like learning a new
language, the younger the young are exposed to the challenges
of developing their faculties of choice, of developing both
a philosophical and practical understanding of what it means
to exercise freedom, the more likely the adult will be poised
to choose wisely as it concerns his community and nation.
Freedom
is not merely an acquisition through happenstance. Being free
to choose is a faculty that has to fine-tuned in order to
serve time-tested traditions and life-affirming values that
are constantly evolving.
