What Does It Mean To Be Free?

To me freedom is a violent word because it suggests that there is something to be free of or from. In this way, it is just another word to qualify what is good or right versus what is bad or wrong. In this way, it is no different than any discourse that suggests there is an "other" such as colonialism, imperialism, racism, Nazism, etc. Further, it may even be part of each of these violent discourses - each promoting freedom from the other. In the name of freedom people become a destructive force - taking life, manipulating and poisoning the environment, and destroying society. This is the idea of freedom produced by people who have grouped themselves by some commonality and then placed their ideology as superior to others.

There is also freedom of the individual, where the issue regards personal freedom such as the freedom to live, think, and influence one's environment. Freedom that suggests one's own ability to influence their personal environment as they see fit is counter intuitive to the understanding of human nature and society. This concept of freedom requires that a person be unique and free of external influences. However, the relationship between people and their environment is constitutive in that a person is a product of their environment and in turn plays a role in producing their environment. In this way, any attempt to influence the environment is based on the person who is based on their environment which is based on previous people and so on and so forth. Therefore, there is no such thing as a person who exists as an uninfluenced entity. Further, this understanding of freedom inhibits the constitutive nature of person and environment in that the environment's influence on the person goes unnoticed while the person's influence on the environment is restricted. This is an unnatural societal pattern that produces violence in its limiting reach.

Yet, if people and environment are constitutive then perhaps to be free is to be a blank slate, unwritten on by the act of existence. In this way, the only true freedom is in the absence of existence. Then it is not freedom that I want - but that the imprint of existence on me be one of unity. I do not mean this in a homogeneous sense at the level of individuals - that every person should be the same and have the same thoughts and feelings. I mean that the commonality of all people is that they share a home within a biological system - the Earth. While this is true, the struggle for freedom from each other is the most violent act against the nature of our environment.

I think the understanding of freedom should be re-defined using empirical observation, understanding of the constitutive nature of people and their environment, and recognizing the common ground upon which we exist.

What do you think?