Thoughts on “Freedom”
Freedom is a word whose various interpretations depend on the identity and economic situation of the person speaking, reading, or listening to it. At a glance, the word might bring one to dismiss it as a concept with excessive room for definition; however, its mention evokes a wide variety of impassioned feelings, thoughts, and actions depending on where it is spoken. It simultaneously forms the foundation of abolitionist calls for the collapse of the U.S. prison industrial complex and white nationalist aims for racist heteropatriarchal dominance. While the variety of histories which inform understandings of this word often conflict, I believe true freedom is the ability to choose the path of one’s life without threat of violence or death. As human beings, our freedom is inextricably bound to the choices of the individuals within our human collective. In a perfect world, freedom would be the unhindered ability to do anything one’s heart desired. However, perfection, as it is understood in the west, is only attainable in the absence of movement. In reality, everything is moving all the time. Unless one has managed to acquire a certain level of wealth (an amount of currency and an arguable representation of one’s freedom), freedom must be acknowledged as a daily negotiation of choice amidst the everlasting motion of change. To choose one choice is to deny another. Yet, many people are faced with the obligation, outlined by the governing laws and policies of their society, to choose not their heart’s desire, but what will allow them to survive.
The fundamental drive to survive determines the expanse of one’s personal freedom—their ability to make decisions for themselves without consequence. One’s level of privilege determines the types of choices one has to make. For example, there are people who are faced with the decision of painting a room one color over another while other people must choose between basic human needs like eating or sleeping. The condition of our lives establishes an imaginative foundation which determines how we think and feel about the kinds of choices we have to make. Everyone is faced with choices about fundamental needs, but the ability to fulfill those needs determines the obligatory urgency of the choice.
Freedom should be understood as a balance. If one’s most fundamental needs are met, the options one has in life expand. Yet, personal freedom is heavily influenced by communal representation in the form of government policy. Like all human decisions, the decisions which inform policies begin as feelings in the body. I believe the primary function of thought and the imagination are not only to interpret sensory information received from the people, places, and things which surround us, but to interpret our own feelings as well. Thought and the imagination are words which connote different understandings of how our minds interpret our lived experiences. Both are creative by way of synthesizing information received and they each lend themselves toward personal decisions to, for example, speak, listen, look, create, or react in response to internal feelings. While no two people have ever lived identical lives, political decisions are made in response to some sort of stimuli causing a communal feeling and/or response.
Feeling and freedom are directly related. The feelings one has seldom result from choice, but they can be balanced by the way one thinks about the source of their cause. For example, the choices made by white nationalists during the 2021 United States Capitol attack are founded in feelings which precede British presence on North American soil. I believe the decision to uphold hegemony and dominance as a path to freedom stem from an old feeling of lack or threat which has allowed the concept of western whiteness to develop and thrive. Western whiteness is a divisive mechanism which attempts to reify imaginary borders between our experiences, environments, and communities through hierarchical standards or patterns of thought and behavior. Western whiteness makes a visceral attempt at bringing the minds of the people it marginalizes to self impose constraints on their imaginations and the choices they make. If imagination and thought are the substance of action and language, then it can be said that action and language are able to alter the limits of one's imagination and thoughts. There will always be people with the propensity to exert control over what one considers possible through fear derived from the threat of death. However, there is always the choice to decide how one engages fear.
Human life and experiences are entirely varied. Some people have lived incredibly difficult lives which have molded their minds to be hostile or opposed to community building. Their pursuits of freedom result in the oppression of others. As horrible as the aforementioned is, I believe it should be acknowledged that freedom is already a worldly imperative, but its definition is so diverse between cultures, let alone the word’s translation among their respective languages. I believe most societal advancements are made with individual pursuits of freedom in mind.
