Surveying Present-Day Freedom

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

Freedom is one of the most important things that affect human lives in myriad ways particularly at the level of self-development. A person’s freedom to think, feel and do things - either alone or with others - has effects on his/her life and the society in general, in whichever form. The incidence of the effect depends on the gravity of the acts. The problem with freedom is that the term has often been misinterpreted. When a term is misinterpreted, adherents of the term naturally go on to win converts by using arguments largely based on force, not on reason. The more converts are won, the more the application of the term to personal and collective life brings about more problems than solutions. I believe that a term that is applied to human life has to be more realistic than abstract. An overly abstract term can be hijacked by dominant forces, given misleading interpretations and foisted on innocent people without allowing the chance to assess the logical and practical implications of the term. Innocent people who are won over may go on to commit misdeeds as if their minds have been held captives. Such has partly been the misuse of the popular term, freedom.

Indeed, we require freedom in order to fully utilize our respective mental, emotional and perceptual experiences for outcomes we care to bring about; but what is “freedom”? Before defining this term in its usual general fashion, I would like to say that different patterns of life get much of their nurturing from the way freedom is exhibited to each individual; so the availability and use of freedom cannot be similar with each individual. The concept of freedom ought to take account of this fact.

Now, a standard definition of freedom is that freedom is the ability - and, of course, the right - to do the things one thinks of doing and can actually do them without being restrained by external human forces. In doing these things, one has coordinated emotionalized thoughts with acts. The doer of acts has to be reasonable and do the acts in ways that will not hurt others. Acts that prove to be entirely in accord with what the doer expected confirm the authentic freedom of the doer. Here, a qualification has to be made. A crazy man has the freedom to do what is instigated by his emotionalized thoughts. In so far as his thoughts are not considered to be in a rational framework, he needs to be restrained by the appropriate instruments of the society; if not, he could bring about harm.

What is unclear about the abstract definition of freedom is that it stays silent with regard to the practical causes and consequences of freedom on the individual and its accompanying effects on the society. Besides, it does not stipulate the precise limits of the restraining powers of authorities who exemplify - or are made to exemplify - the spirit of freedom and defend it. Freedom here does not, for example, state why and how some individuals have more freedom to exercise their wishes than others in the social, political and economic domains. For example, Mr. Q has much more ability to say and do what he wants with people in politics, in business, in the media and in many other fields compared to Mrs. P. This entails Mr. Q has much more freedom than Mrs. P. He has much more freedom by virtue of his power to do more things than Mrs. P. It would, therefore, appear that power and freedom are directly connected.

The sense of freedom that has often been equated with democracy is far more ambiguous than it may, at first sight, look. A government of the people that democracy stipulates cannot, in practice, be a government of all the people. Government representatives are elected or nominated by eligible voters or individuals to cater to the needs and aspirations of all the people. As much as there are some people who disapprove of the government or are ignorant about the functions and intentions of the potential and actual government, their freedom in relation to the government is unfounded. What makes the democratic system even more contestable is that the freedom to choose the government you like may come true or may not come true. Since your freedom to choose did not come true, your initial freedom to choose did not generate the desired practical consequence. Unrealizable freedom of this nature is not really authentic freedom and may merely be claimed to be restricted freedom. But restricted freedom is not what the general definition of freedom tends to stipulate. Restricted freedom is not an ideal definition of freedom; for the ability to do what one wants also means what one wants ought to generate the outcome that is consistent with what was done. In effect, you want to do X. because you are convinced that doing X will bring about the desired consequence K. You had the freedom to do X, but the consequence K was missed. One could say that under this condition, the cause and consequence of your freedom was uncoordinated, and the freedom so cherished by you in this particular instance was rendered incomplete or restricted.

Take the case of a woman who exploits the law of the society that claims that one is free to join any association provided the association does not harm members or non-members or threaten in any way the safety of the society. Her wish is to join the Catholic Church and sing, through that, the praises of God. She succeeds in doing so - and entirely. This will appropriately qualify as authentic freedom unlike the restricted freedom that preceded this example.

Much of the ambiguity about the concept of freedom is not just about individual self-determination but about how the structure of individual thoughts, emotions and acts are shaped by the scope of freedom. Consider a man who has been lodged in a small community all his entire life without any travel and has not got the chance to mingle with and experience how life is with different people from different environments and cultures. Apart from this, he hardly reads about a wide range of social, political and economic matters. True, this man is free to think, feel and do whatever he likes in line with the spirit of freedom. Since his range of understanding about societal affairs is woefully limited, his freedom to make viable choices regarding what goes on is restricted. In fact, his choices about crucial matters are likely to be capricious. Such kinds of people usually resist change and, thus, do not stand as fair representations of the concept and practice of genuine freedom.

One often hears - or must have heard - of the paradoxical claim that system C, a system that mirrors the political and economic system, is the only one suitable for the culture at stake. But this is an indication that what holds as freedom has here not been grasped or has been thrown aside. For any system is possible of execution provided it does not infringe upon individual freedoms as well as destabilize on end the cultural temperament of the society. After all, this is what and how trial, error, correction of error, and systematic progress is about - and does occur. Tyrannical thinking - that is, thinking undemocratically without giving room for rational compromises - is the cause of insular resistance to untried but bold systems that could liberate a society from the pain, the drawbacks of archaic, counterproductive practices. So, one must get it clear. We are free to think, feel, and do whatever we like according to the accepted rules, norms of the society; but, then, the natural flow of freedom is restricted by the sheer lack of reasonable knowledge that could free a person from the shackles of ignorance. All too often, this kind of ignorance persists, not because one does not have the opportunity to know but because one has made it a duty not to know.

It need to be stated further that the negative freedom to refuse to know when the positive freedom of knowing will amplify one’s range of freedom constitutes a setback, a real problem for individual freedom; and it may be necessary for authorities to see to it that such people do not lapse into untold ignorance by helping them, through the appropriate institutions, to attain genuine freedom.

I am convinced that there is one element of freedom that surpasses all others in terms of relative importance; it is what may ordinarily be termed economic freedom. The ability to get for oneself things essential to sustain life and develop one’s wellbeing in a manner that one wants is an economic issue. If these things are satisfied, they set in motion a train of other kinds of freedom that are non-economic. A well-to-do or a moderately well-to-do person has the freedom to eat most of the things he/she wants, move about to different places fairly easily, speak readily with confidence, interact enthusiastically with all sorts of people, seek to augment his knowledge through further education, and so on. Suppose K, a woman, cannot afford the basic requirements of life such as food, clothing, shelter, and transportation to essential places - places that can relieve her of bitter boredom and the dangers of prolonged seclusion - then there is no need to believe that K is free. In principle, she is free to do whatever she likes within the framework of rationality, but since, in practice, she cannot do these things, she is imprisoned in her thoughts, her feelings and actions. In fact, her emotionalized thoughts and acts are truncated against her wishes. It can be confidently asserted that the function-able scope of any person’s freedom depends largely on the economic index except for those few who have been swayed by the charm of godliness to prefer spiritualism to materialism. K’s plight epitomizes this point.

A society must resist the push for a kind of freedom that just insist that one is free if one is unrestrained in one’s desire to do whatever safe things one wants to do. As we have seen, this concept of freedom is abstract and ambiguous. It does not show the workings of freedom in connection with individual self-determination, nor does it show what role authorities have to play in fostering freedom for the betterment of a people. Today’s comprehension and practice of freedom is not sustainable if it obstructs the self-determination of so many people, a condition which must have arisen from the inadequacies of the prevailing economic system. To say that one is free to do as many things as one wants because one is economically secure makes much more sense than saying that one is free to do whatever one wants because the society sanctions this kind of freedom. If there is such a thing as hinge freedom, then it should be likened to economic freedom. It is to the hinge of economic freedom that other kinds of freedom can turn and advance.

I believe that the game of democracy is not fixed within specific rules. Whenever there is the need to change an economic arrangement in order to revitalize self and collective determination of a people, democracy likewise changes its complexion. The modern notion of freedom is allied to democracy; yet the freedom of the people fails to enliven democracy unless as many as possible of the people have the kind of economic freedom that is able to give them the confidence to practice freedom with a pronounced sense of dignity and purpose. I think, moreover, that a reasonable amount of discipline is necessary for a people to serve a society with patriotism and, at the same time, help to beef up the sense of duty so vital for social and economic advancement. With the realization of these goals, economic freedom stands a great chance of reinforcing the other forms of freedom.

Why Do We Lose Our Moral And Social Values?

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

Inhabit any section of a country, a region or a place, then you will be claimed to belong to a society. A society is what makes you who you are.  You chose not to shut yourself from others when you wanted to find a way to develop, to improve upon the strength of your advancement because you thought others could lift you up, show you the way, in all forms, to the development you so much desired. What distinguishes people in a society is the way they come together to do things to reinforce the social and economic culture. The key words here are “come together”, which will also mean cooperativeness or teamwork. If coming together is an essential attribute of an authentic society, why do people shy away from it? Do not such people know that by shunning teamwork they are breaking up the natural character of the society?

It is clear that, as individuals, we have two aspects to our behaviour: our egotistical desires and our moral-social desires. Our continual personal strivings to, first, satisfy our personal wants shows that our egotistical desires far outweigh our moral-social desires. We prefer, in general, to please ourselves first before we proceed to please others or help to please others. And even if a person is claimed to be exceptionally altruistic, meaning he/she prefers to help others very much, it is largely for the reason that doing so will give him/her personal gratification, uplift his/her self-worth. 

The problem a society needs to check is the unusual ascendancy of egotistical desires that tend to destroy the moral-social elements of human desires; and this problem becomes more pronounced the more individuals - or, at least, most of them - feel that they have achieved much of their respective pressing goals in terms of the satisfaction of wants. What has not been properly considered by many leaders is the issue of connecting moral-social development with economic development. Should fiscal discipline that generates considerable economic growth be the key benchmark for determining how well a society is functioning? Or should moral-social elements be fully incorporated into financial issues that determine a society’s level of development?

For many technically minded people, the issue of morality and social practices are personal things that develop naturally in us and should not be given much prominence by leaders or those who govern. But why this eccentric viewpoint so much soaked with indifference? Much of the difficulty has to be related to the new breed of humans who have found much more comfort in thing-friends, not human-friends. Human-friends are seen as a bother, an unwanted intrusion into one’s privacy; thus, to talk about public affairs, socialistic endeavours, togetherness, and the like generates an instantaneous disagreement from those who have developed a solid thing-friendship.

By thing-friends - or thing-friendship - I mean the amazing emotional and moral value that a person attaches to, say, his/her computer, walkman or ipod, TV, mansion, estate (and allied products) as well as, say, animal pets such that these things generate much more comfort to him/her than associating with people, working with people or being with people. A thing-friend person will, for instance, like to use his/her well-liked computer to communicate with somebody - often very briefly - instead of talking and/or meeting with that person. An increasingly technical society propagates thing-friendship. No wonder in such societies, some kind of public ownership - or attempts by the government to publicly own or be part of private enterprises - is viewed as a foil to progress by proponents of thing-friendship. But it is not clear what these proponents want government to be or what they think should be the purpose, the role of government. The more thing-friendship grows, the more human-friendship decays.  

In fact, the kind of insular reasoning that a thing-friendship person is likely to put forward regarding the issue of social morality, as I have stated, counters the logic of what a society is as well as why and how we ought to belong to a society. His/Her reasoning, it may further be stated, constitutes a basis for the steady unhealthiness of the society.

Now, I want to give a summary of what I have said.

The unusual greed that could rip a society apart - whether temporarily or lastingly - has its major source in personal lifestyles that are sealed from a significant participation in public affairs. This is an insult to the moral and social rhythm of the society. We need a new rhythm of life born from the moral and social assertiveness of the human being. Whoever, as a dominant force, gives eminence to these two factors has put the society at the forefront of noble development. .

 

 

 

Why Think, Feel And Act This Way, Not That Way?

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

Every modern society, it can be stated, strives for the best possible good for its entire citizenry. This ideal situation, while difficult to achieve, is worth striving for and is, in principle, regarded as the basis for the effectual advancement of a society. Once people in a society begin to reap the fruits of settled lives, their appetites grow for leaders who can help them in stabilizing and further improving upon their lifestyles. Governments, for the most part, are established for such a purpose; and the measure of the success of a government is allied to how high the level of people's living conditions is.

If the general consensus is that governments have to function in the said way, why is it, then, so difficult for governments to work towards achieving this aim? In particular, why is it that it is too common to see people accusing governments of being incompetent? Does it mean such governments do not understand that good governance ought to correspond to quality life of the people they govern? But if these governments understand this basic point, why do they deviate from it?

First, all functionaries of government agree in principle that their goal is to work to let people's wellbeing improve to the highest possible level. This agreement may also be said to be a primitive understanding of the facts about people's wellbeing. But a primitive understanding does not translate into a processed understanding. It is the latter that contributes a sizeable portion of the different kinds of understanding that governments or decision makers or anybody attaches to doings. Thus, all decision makers may agree - and, in fact, primitively understand - that providing the best possible good for the people is the finest choice; but they may disagree on how to attain this goal precisely because their respective processed understandings of the best possible good are different. There is no point in asking why the processed understandings of decision makers differ. If individual minds differ in terms of cognitive value, processed understanding must likewise differ; but, then, the general structure of individual minds, whenever they are activated by data from percepts, incite thought processes; and this indicates that primitive understanding is generated from the primitive workings of the mind. Let the mind proceed to process information that its primitive understanding present to it, then dissimilarity of practical or usable ideas will be evident. That is processed understanding!

The lack of coordination between passion and processed understanding ought to explain the incompetence of a person who is entrusted duties and responsibilities even as resources for completing a job or jobs are fully available. This shows that processed understanding was incomplete or twisted, or that passion was weak or incoherent - or both. Hence, two persons may act differently even upon being given the same kind of resources to work with. Different outcomes are here expected. Cognitive discord of the form that connects to the understanding or passion need not embarrass us except when it casts gloom on a person's or people's lives and proves plainly to be from a scrappy source. Whether passion is the subject to study in order to judge the failings of persons in positions of trusts or whether processed understanding is what has to be studied, we need the service of the environment. It may be asked, for example: “why did Mac, a government functionary, fail so badly in executing tasks assigned him for the public’s good?” The answer here will not be straightforward; and apart from calling forth the aid of descriptive psychology - which is what we have done with regard to describing the mode of the understanding and passion – in judging Mac's personality, we must also look into Mac's social history and analyze it with the greatest possible care. And if this is what has to be done, it shows how individuals' passion and understanding are anchored on their social history while social history is itself inseparably tied to the environment of the persons in question.

The environment we are talking about is not merely what nature has donated, in its pure form, to us to enable us to survive, live. Environment also means how nature has been made use of to accelerate or degenerate human advancement, in whichever way or form. To fully appraise the environment, let it be noted that the observed core beliefs and practices of a social group that rationalizes the conclusion that that is the way the group functions is also an adequate signification of the culture. The environment largely determines this characterization but it moreover explains why other social groups are different - or ought to be different. We want to repeat that understanding operates in two forms: its primitive and processed forms. Passion operates in a similar fashion: primitive and processed passion.

For those whose processed passions do not complete their cycle of maturation, yet undertake to satisfy personal desires or desires pressed on them by the public, passion will likely be uncoordinated with the understanding and, thus, yield results that may be far below expectation. Like the understanding, passion is activated when data from percepts register in the inner character of the individual. Unless the understanding and passion are coordinated in a sustainable fashion, actions may lack the rational tone to enrich personality with authenticity.

A cumulative difference in each person's processed understanding and passion renders the scientific assessment of a person's temperament and, in general, a social group's temperament debatable or contestable. It is as if we are being warned to rather stick to intelligible speculations.

So far, a framework has been provided to - it can be said - help in grasping rational and irrational actions in so far as they are conceptually and perceptually adequate or inadequate for personal and public good. But care must be taken not to overstate the issue of the good; for the good ought not to be achieved at the expense of promoting harm or pain to others.

Suppose some top brasses of one culture get swayed into undertaking an expedition into another culture expecting to conquer the other culture and appropriating its coveted resources, what conclusions could one draw about the conqueror? What other conclusions can we draw about the vanquished? In line with our theoretical formulation of primitive understanding and passion and of processed understanding and passion, we simply have to say that processed understanding and processed passion of the conqueror were uncoordinated. An inordinate flow of processed passion compared to the understanding has the tendency to set off actions that may contradict the natural characterization of the human personality as one that is morally sane and socially composed. But is it the fault of us individuals that some of us tend to be cool, calm and collected while others tend to be unduly aggressive? But, then, a dearth of vigorous passion could encourage the understanding to overwhelm passion. That is when we might say: “this is a soft personality unsuitable for daring acts at decisive moments.” While a soft personality could promote compassion, kindness, generosity, it could also be marred by volumes of indecision relative to crucial adventures.

Now, it can be understood, for instance, how cultures help to shape the understanding and passion of individuals and groups in ways that ultimately have to be referred to the available environments from the past to the present. To check the excesses spawned chiefly by processed passion, there is the pressing need to invent governments whose functionaries are ably scrutinized by whichever competent people have the ability to do so. Accordingly, the respective personalities of the said functionaries need to conform to the principle that each person's processed understanding ought to coordinate with processed passion. But how can this evaluation be done?

We suggest a timely answer, which is a two-way affair. When you see for yourself that your passion is destabilizing your internal structure, do your best to refrain from telling acts. When you see another person's potential demeanour to be other than normal, do your best to restrain him/her from executing telling acts.