ON FREEDOM

If our awareness, our experience, our knowledge and our consciousness are all constituted and mediated by our nervous system, then what does it mean to say that we are, or can be free? What does it mean to link knowledge of truth and freedom as so many spiritual traditions do? Can we ever be "absolutely free?" If our models of self and world derive from genetically determined, neurognostic structures, and if the development of those structures is neurognostic as well, are we then not merely automatons carrying around an illusion of freedom? And what can we make of the implication in a lot of teachings that the acquisition of freedom requires study? This is what Jesus appears to imply when he says, "you will know the truth and that very truth will make you free" (John 8:32). It would seem from the sages of the ages that the liberated state of mind is only attainable as a consequence of individual, effortful self-reflection and self-study.

I am not talking about "individual" in the sense of selfish solipsism. Solipsism and enlightenment (or liberation) are mutually exclusive, for, as Edmund Husserl and other phenomenologists down through the ages have taught, the inevitable consequence of mature contemplation is the growth of empathy and compassion in the being. This is why so many traditions, and indeed the very roots of our own language, associate freedom and love. The liberated individual quite naturally and lawfully desires liberation for others. Freeing ourselves is not good enough, for in the very process of freeing ourselves, we come to know we are inseparably bound up with all there is, with all other beings. In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is part of the Bodhisattva vow to foreswear final entry into Nirvana until, as they say, "every blade of grass has become enlightened."

I am going to suggest here that there is no contradiction to say that our consciousness is neurognostic and that our consciousness strives for liberation or freedom. I will further suggest that the process of trueing is inseparable from the process of liberation. But first I want to make sure we are talking about the same thing. Let's look at the word "freedom" and try in good anthropological fashion to operationalize the pith essence of the meaning of freedom so that it can apply cross-culturally.

What Is Freedom?

Western notions of freedom frequently have to do with individuality and the lack of constraints to individual desires and the pursuit of material, economic, political or other goals (see Bergmann 1977 for a survey of Western views of freedom). There has certainly been a celebration of the individual in the West. Carl Jung considered extreme ego development to be the hallmark of the Western psyche. Some people in the West have carried the development of their individual egos to the point where they feel themselves to be detached and even alienated from the rest of humanity and the world. We manifest our individuality most by the choices we make in life -- how we choose to live, to relate to others, to be.

John Stuart Mill, the great British philosopher who published On Liberty in 1859, was very concerned with the rights of the individual and minority groups in society. He also was very aware of the educational aspect of freedom.

But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person toward the cultivation of his higher nature are hindrances to another. The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another it is a distracting burden which suspends or crushes all internal life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies that, unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. (Mill 1978 [1859]: 65)

Mill recognized the potential, even in a society that codes itself as "democratic," for the majority to lord it over minorities, for the group to lord it over individuals. The society has to be governed in such a way that the individual pursuit of happiness and goals is protected from unwarranted intrusion by the views and actions of others. At the same time, the individual has to give up some of the perks of individuality for the commonweal. Stifling other folks' views to forward your own agenda is a big no-no, unless their views are dangerous to you or to society. This fine balance of rights and obligations requires education so that the individual learns to become a member of the "organic" fabric of society. Canada's greatest philosopher, George Grant (1985), was quite concerned about the role of education in supporting a democratic tradition.

Well, we have reached the end of this discourse. A bibliography follows. You may wish to go back to the index of the Advanced Discourses section and note where you would like to come back to.

Bibliography

Bergmann, R. (1977) On Being Free. Notre Dame, ID: University of Notre Dame Press.

Grant, G. (1985) English-Speaking Justice. Toronto: Anansi.

Mill, John S. (1978) On Liberty. Indianapolis, ID: Hackett Publishing Co.