Freedom And Control

The idea of freedom has always moved the hearts and minds of humankind, especially in times of very limited freedom, when the weight of chains is heavy.

Today there seem to be two forces growing simultaneously. On the one hand we see a new rise of authoritarian control, on the other hand there is Freedom blossoming in unprecedented ways everywhere you care to see it, block-chain technology and crypto-currencies being two prominent examples.

Of course, the great battle between control and freedom is not new. It has been waged for at least 6000 years, maybe it has been with us since the first day of our species.

And even though the sort of control that is being forced on people all over the world today is the greatest enemy of freedom, first of all there is a word to be said in favor of control:

Living in this world, as a species and as an individual, there is a need to control our surroundings, at least to a degree, in order to avoid danger and maximize our chance of survival.
If there happen to be many dangerous animals around, you may want to control the area around you in a way that minimizes this particular threat.

We control our surroundings in order to deal with threats and to secure our survival. This indicates that control has its roots in fear. Fear of pain, fear of starvation, fear of death. Those who do not fear pain or death nor have any kind of lack whatsoever, have no reason to try to control anything outside of themselves.

The deeper we are in fear, the more we feel a need to control.

A good example for this is mandatory vaccination, which is also an example of the authoritarian views rising today. If you are afraid for the survival of yourself or your children, and you believe vaccination to be a solution to that problem, you may just want to start forcing other people to go along with your solution. And this is where control becomes problematic.

Once we try to control other humans, we cross a crucial threshold. Once we negate the individual freedom of others and force them to do our will, we leave all ethics and morality behind and step on the path of oppression, slavery, rape, theft, coercion, torture and murder. Murder is the maximum amount of control over another being. If there are two humans in one place and one of them kills the other, the murderer has taken maximum control over the other. The opponent is no longer a threat in any way, if he ever was.

Force and the threat thereof is violent behavior that is to be expected from humans who are in a state of fear. But in the mind of the human in the state of fear things present themselves in a very different light: The human in fear likes to perceive the situation rather like a just and necessary battle against chaos and death. The fellow human is not perceived as an equally free being, instead, the other is seen as just a part of the environment that needs to be controlled in order to survive.

But in reality this view is only justified in one very special situation: Self defense.
If you are attacked by someone, you need to take control of that situation in order to survive or defend the wellbeing of you and those around you. If nobody is attacking you but you start trying to control their behavior through force or the threat of force anyway, you are the perpetrator, not the victim.

Again the example of mandatory vaccination is very helpful:
Those who want to force others to do their will perceive themselves to be under attack by dangerous virus, bacteria and death spreading human weapons. And therefore they feel justified in forcing their will onto others.

But while personal freedom is a real thing and its recognition a tremendous achievement, there is no such thing as a right to live in a world without illness and death. Advocates of mandatory vaccination like to say that freedom ends where the freedom of others begins.
And that is true.
Yet they seem to be unable to understand that this goes both ways and that the meaning of it is that nobody should force anybody. As long as I don't attack you, you have no right whatsoever to use any kind of force against me. Not being vaccinated is not an attack by any means, but fear can make it appear just like that, especially when it is fired up by propaganda.

The body is the ultimate frontier of freedom. This is why the example of forced injections is so useful. Nobody has the right to forcefully control the body of someone else. If we give up this clear and visible line, as mandatory vaccination does, where shall we draw the new line? Once the supposed good of the majority overrides individual freedom and self-ownership, even when it comes to the body, where shall the new limits be?

If we give up personal freedom and self determination for the supposed good of the collective, governments will be able to dictate every single detail of our life. Science says millions will be spared from death in the future if we stop eating meat collectively. Shall the government therefore regulate what we can eat? Without individual freedom the answer is: Yes! And in the manner of advocates of forced vaccination it could be argued that those who eat meat are a threat to the survival of my children and therefore my call to make vegetarianism mandatory is just self-defense.

Overpopulation is another issue that can be easily 'solved' without individual freedom: Just get rid of the 'unfit'. Poverty? Kill kill kill kill kill the poor! Deteriorating genetic pool? Let the government decide who can have children.

To put the supposed future good of the collective over the freedom of the individual has proven to be one of the most dangerous ideologies in history. The millions of victims of the national socialists in the Third Reich and the international socialists of the USSR alone show the insanity of this ideology. But we don't have to go back in history to see the insanity of it.

Today governments regulate the medicine we are allowed to use, the mind-altering substances, weapons, they forcefully take away our wealth, put us in cages, murder us. And as if that was not already bad and immoral enough, some want to even expand this violence, which the state claims to have a monopoly on, instead of reducing it! The quest for a monopoly on immorality is what it really is.

But is a monopoly on immorality a solution? Is not rather immorality and unethical behavior the problem itself? If theft is the problem, why give power to the biggest thief around? If the use of force is the problem, the acceptance of the non-aggression-principle is the solution, not the creation of a monopoly on force.

There is some intriguing evidence that around 6000 years ago there was a catastrophic drought right in the area where most people were living. Good land turned into desert and the basis of survival broke away. James DeMeo argues in his so called 'Saharasia hypothesis' that this cataclysm destroyed the social order of the time and replaced it with hierarchical gangs roaming the lands robbing and stealing in order to survive.

The hierarchical system we have in place now may just be the descendant of these first gangs who, because of their justified fear of imminent death, overthrew the social order and took what they needed without regard for the life and freedom of others. And while this would be rather understandable, we do no longer live in such an extraordinarily difficult situation that would make such a behavior a good choice, if it ever was. On the contrary: In most situations, cooperation is a strategically much better choice than competition without bounds. As Kropotkin argued in Mutual Aid, complex lifeforms do in fact cooperate because it is the most successful strategy. While permanent extensive competition within the own group and without, is actually rather self-destructive.

We tend to localize the problems of the world in the behavior of others.

But after all is said and done, Freedom begins inside of all of us. Freedom advances with every individual that takes a good look at its own behavior and decides to no longer initiate force, or support the initiation of force against others. And what a great moment that is! What a liberation!

Instead of trying to control all around us and accepting and rationalizing whatever our own unreflected behavior may be, we need to start controlling our own behavior and start accepting what others do, as long as they don't initiate force.

One of the great advantages of this strategy is, that besides spreading freedom, it is actually feasible. We can control our own behavior, even if it is rather difficult to become aware of our own problematic actions and the fears behind them. But it IS possible. While to control everything around us, is simply impossible. Nobody can ever find peace and security, much less happiness, by trying to control all life around. It is much more likely to end in murderous paranoia and destruction. In fact what we see today is an attempt to control life to such a degree, that it starts to resemble a death cult. We are so afraid that we basically kill all life/nature around us in order to be more save. But maximum control over nature equals death, not survival, at least in the long term.

If we spend a fraction of the time and energy we use to look at what others do and try to control it, and instead use it to evaluate and control our own behavior, freedom will thrive.
If we recognize control over others as a result of fear and the root of much evil, this world will become a better place.

Each and every one of us has it in their own hands. It is a choice. Fear or Love.