NaBloPoMo - Freedom is a big word
Jun. 3rd, 2010 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askygoneonfireThursday, June 3, 2010
Define "freedom."
The interesting thing about the word 'freedom' is how many contradictory things it can be used to champion at any one time.
In any exercise of individual freedom comes the possibility - and often the realisation - to infringe upon another person's freedom. The notion of 'free speech' and 'freedom of expression' are surely those freedoms which most frequently fall into that guilty category. Look to the newspaper articles in the likes of the Daily Mail, look to the manifesto and public statements of groups like the BNP; these people exercise their right to free speech and demand a curb on the freedom of others. But at what point do the scales tip too far in one direction and privilege the expression of one group over another? At what point, if any, does 'freedom' become a right that is abused and not carefully exercised with all due consideration to those touched by the words, actions and expression of another?
We look to countries with poor human rights records and we can say definitively that those citizens lack freedoms, that they deserve more; that is where freedom is easy to define. Similarly countries which dismiss and oppress women, who erase their personal freedoms whilst men pass through their lives in liberty; we know what freedom means to these people.
Somewhat ironically it strikes me that the place where freedom is hardest to define, the place where freedom takes on the burden of too many concepts and demands is in this country, in America, and all the other first world countries - those who have the greatest freedom and the most absolute sense of their entitlement to it. What makes our notion of freedom so difficult to understand? What I know of America and the most public political polemics, is that the term 'freedom' is brandished daily, it encompasses the drive that led the country to be founded by the white settlers, and so it is of daily relevance, Americans are living in a country which promised freedom as birth right. And although we perhaps don't have that historical absolute, along the line all other first world countries have made that guarantee, so for generations we've been born to expect nothing less. Could it be then that we are too comfortable, too complacent to understand the privilege of freedom and the minority we live amongst who can wake up on the first day of their lives and know that, within their country, they will never face death for expressing themselves in an immediate and honest manner? But that seems too simple. I know as a woman I am concious of the freedoms bequeathed to me by more foremothers, and I know as a queer woman I am grateful for those activists who came before to ensure me and my friends can love who we please and tell who we please. Perhaps then, freedom is a steep gradient which begins to even out towards the top but is, in a hard to define way, never fully realised.
So what does freedom mean? I don't know. I don't think anyone does, really. We can understand it by degrees, we can understand what it means to have and lose and need freedoms; but freedom? It's too big. It both signifies and betrays too many concepts simultaneously. And perhaps, as it seems never to be fully realised, it will remain a word always slipping out of grip as we try to pin it down
Define "freedom."
The interesting thing about the word 'freedom' is how many contradictory things it can be used to champion at any one time.
In any exercise of individual freedom comes the possibility - and often the realisation - to infringe upon another person's freedom. The notion of 'free speech' and 'freedom of expression' are surely those freedoms which most frequently fall into that guilty category. Look to the newspaper articles in the likes of the Daily Mail, look to the manifesto and public statements of groups like the BNP; these people exercise their right to free speech and demand a curb on the freedom of others. But at what point do the scales tip too far in one direction and privilege the expression of one group over another? At what point, if any, does 'freedom' become a right that is abused and not carefully exercised with all due consideration to those touched by the words, actions and expression of another?
We look to countries with poor human rights records and we can say definitively that those citizens lack freedoms, that they deserve more; that is where freedom is easy to define. Similarly countries which dismiss and oppress women, who erase their personal freedoms whilst men pass through their lives in liberty; we know what freedom means to these people.
Somewhat ironically it strikes me that the place where freedom is hardest to define, the place where freedom takes on the burden of too many concepts and demands is in this country, in America, and all the other first world countries - those who have the greatest freedom and the most absolute sense of their entitlement to it. What makes our notion of freedom so difficult to understand? What I know of America and the most public political polemics, is that the term 'freedom' is brandished daily, it encompasses the drive that led the country to be founded by the white settlers, and so it is of daily relevance, Americans are living in a country which promised freedom as birth right. And although we perhaps don't have that historical absolute, along the line all other first world countries have made that guarantee, so for generations we've been born to expect nothing less. Could it be then that we are too comfortable, too complacent to understand the privilege of freedom and the minority we live amongst who can wake up on the first day of their lives and know that, within their country, they will never face death for expressing themselves in an immediate and honest manner? But that seems too simple. I know as a woman I am concious of the freedoms bequeathed to me by more foremothers, and I know as a queer woman I am grateful for those activists who came before to ensure me and my friends can love who we please and tell who we please. Perhaps then, freedom is a steep gradient which begins to even out towards the top but is, in a hard to define way, never fully realised.
So what does freedom mean? I don't know. I don't think anyone does, really. We can understand it by degrees, we can understand what it means to have and lose and need freedoms; but freedom? It's too big. It both signifies and betrays too many concepts simultaneously. And perhaps, as it seems never to be fully realised, it will remain a word always slipping out of grip as we try to pin it down
