The end of freedom

I am shackled hand and foot spread eagle on the floor of my cell. I ask my jailer everyday to set me free. Finally he compassionately sets me free.

For days I am exhilarated with the ability to freely pace about my cell. After a few weeks I begin to beg my jailer to set me free. After weeks he, being a compassionate man, sets me free from my cell.

For days I am exhilarated at the freedom to wonder about and speak with other inmates. After several weeks I begin to beg my jailer to free me and finally he relents and releases me from jail. I am overwhelmed with the sense of freedom until I, overcome with hunger and basic needs, seek some work so as to feed myself.

I find a job working on an assembly line and am exhilarated at the new found freedom. After a year I begin to seek other less strenuous and repetitive assembly line work. I wish to free myself from this robotic work I do everyday.

What is the ‘telos’ (ultimate end) of this series of ever persistent desire for freedom? Is hunger for freedom similar to hunger for food, never satiated? I don’t think so. I think the search for freedom can culminate in an ultimate and satisfying end.

Freedom, I suspect, is a search for self-determination. When we feel that we are master of our domain, when we are free to determine who we are and what we need to be our self we will have reached that ‘telos’ of freedom. I suspect this end is as unique as a finger print, it is an act of creation and can be made conscious to me only by me.

I think each of us must learn for our self what we need to secure freedom’s ‘telos’. Probably most of us find only a degree of freedom, but if we never stop looking we may continue finding more of it.

people care more about their material well being. the only freedom they care about is the freedom to enhance their well being, and that is the same as the original statement.

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Anyone with a vision needs to see an eye doctor. -Helmut Schmidt.

"Mrs. Palin, which specific journals and news sources do you read? (after being asked once)"

"Oh, All of them!"

I think your view here supports the underlying drive for a continuous and unending quest for "more freedom". You speak of a time "when we feel that we are master of our domain, when we are free to determine who we are...". But that time will never come unless one chooses to acknowledge that one is limited and bound by outside forces; unless one chooses to accept the limitations of his/her freedom.
No one will ever truly be "master of his domain" unless he narrowly defines what "mastery means" and accepts that some factors are impossible master. No one will ever be utterly free to "determine who he is." The very notion is, in fact, a logical contradiction. One can only hope to determine "who one is" within some accepted set of confinement.

Thus, one might satisfy one's needs for freedom while still shackled to the floor. There are limits upon such freedom, but there will always be limits upon one's freedom. Our choices are either to eventually accept some set of limits, or to be forever struggling for more freedom.

Self knowledge is the essence of self-actualization. Freedom and self-actualization feed upon one another. The more freedom we have the more likely we are to self-actualize and as we do we gain more freedom. They share a symbiotic relationship.

I'm not so sure being content is synonomous with freedom.

Searching never ends for those who have once discovered the meaning of understanding.

Me thinks you've quietly changed your definition of freedom here; unless you're suggesting that self-actualization will somehow make those shackles disappear all by itself.


And that just sounds like something from a fortune cookie

Freedom is a situational condition.
There is no absolute freedom or absolute lack of freedom.
There is either more or less freedom in a given situation.
You are free to eat at McDonalds if you have $5, but you are not free to eat at the Four Seasons if all you have is $5.

Political freedom is actually the limiting of government's freedom of action.
The government cannot pass a law prohibiting or endorsing a religion, so the individual has "Freedom of Religion".
The government cannot pass a law restricting speech, so the individual has "freedom of Speech".
The homeless person is "free", but they can't do very much with that freedom.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

humans will always search for freedom and always be dissapointed at the lack of perfection we face in the quest for humanity.

There are "negative rights" and "positive rights". Negative rights are the same as political freedoms. Positive rights are those when the Gov't gives you something, such as a subsidy, but is dependent upon taxes being paid. Taxes limits the freedom of the individual, the freedom to chose what to do with the money.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

"Ya Don't know what you got till its gone."


-Cinderella 1988.

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