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Louis Guzman
There is probably no word in our democracy that is mis-abused, one might say, as the term “freedom.” We learn it as kids in the simplest form possible, “ America is a free country.” Right? We are a free people, men and women, alike. Who can deny it? There is a sense of superiority in the ring of the phrase, even if once out of middle school we hardly devote time thinking about its meaning.
Of course, we don’t have to think, we believe we know what it means. The idea has been drilled into our psyche by parents, teachers, even by our prankster friends as they lift our favorite toy. Freedom is, in fact, so deeply engraved in our minds that it has become second nature to us, so why bother to cogitate on it? Just live it.
The press, that Constitutionally appointed spokesman of the free flow of information, prides itself in practicing freedom, even though more often than not it hardly bothers to define its usage. The press simply assumes we know what the word means. And what’s more, our leaders have learned the media’s simple rule: freedom is what we say it is …even if it is applied like a cudgel or an economic subterfuge, the antithesis of the concept.
So, in plain words, what does freedom mean? We can go to the dictionary, but dictionary definitions are so abstract they rarely apply to contemporary lifestyles. Let’s try the now old Doubleday Roget’s Thesaurus. Under freedom the first exception lists, liberty, autonomy, self-rule, emancipation, flexibility, elbowroom, and numerous other innocuous … in modern terms … words. More interesting concepts are found in both the first and second exceptions, privilege, right, prerogative, impunity, irresponsibility, and absolution. That’s a bit better.
But we can go further. How about rational, cognitive, ratiocinative, logical, deductive, sane? Maybe that’s a bit too far, maybe not. Take ratiocinative. Sounds really heavy, but like the word I passed on to a favorite relative of mine 15 years ago, it can grow on you. Now that he is a real adult and working for a living, he finds that “extrapolate” is a cool term to throw-in at the right time.
The tongue twister, ratiocinative comes from rational, to be reasonable. That is, to base ones thinking on reason. Interesting, to be reasonable is to be ratiocinative and, therefore, to be free. It gets better. The matter gets even better. Apply reason to life and act on the fruits of reason…. and suddenly, you’re free. In the first instance this applies to the mind. If one’s conscience is free to roam reasonably, the mind can be inventive, creative, and ready to respond to dilemmas of all sorts. It happens that this is the American way. We’ve been freed from the dogmas that once plagued the Old World. Of course, there are limits to the allowable roaming conscience. We can turn to that at another time. Just now we are interested in what freedom means as used by our leaders.
When we are told that we are fighting for our freedom, it’s as if it were a precious commodity, a treasure, so to speak. But it’s not as if freedom is not available to many peoples in the world. Many countries enjoy freedom amply. All you need do is visit a half dozen, and it’ll be apparent to you. In fact, there are some that are freer than we are. There are people who say that the U.S. is a great place to visit, but not to live in. How can that be?
The fact is that we are far from free. Yes, we have just about everything a person would want, maybe more than we want…. or need, for that matter. Just look at the trash dumps we create freely. Hold it there, trash equals freedom? Yep! How many Hummers do you reasonably need. How much packaging is necessary for life? But I digress.
Going back to the meaning of freedom, our lifestyle is based on institutionalized economic freedom. That means that our freedom has become a handmaiden to our economic system. We, by custom and tradition, are free to be used by our economic engine in questionable ways…. again, antithetical to the very meaning of freedom. That is, we are free to be used by forces that, under our laws, operate freely. Once again, in practical terms, turn on your cable television and watch as your hard-earned dollars pay for content that tries to persuade you to shell out more money for stuff you don’t really need. Think about it.
While this free-based economic complex has resulted in unprecedented wealth and power, vastly overbalancing a rational equilibrium between ourselves and the rest of the world, it’s strategic value, if not its morality, bears inquiry. In the end, it may be necessary that true freedom must be rational to, in fact, be freely based.
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