“People are only as free as they really feel in their everyday lives. If you look at the population in a country like Sweden, you notice that some citizens are in fact much more free than others. How can that be? I thought that, in Sweden, “all animals are equal”? After all, they all live in a country with the best Freedom House rating possible. Yet some people wake up in the morning feeling they have control over their lives, while others are driven by fear and shame, constricted in so many subtle or complicated ways. Consider these examples:
- Is a person freer if she gets to follow her dreams and work towards goals and ends that are genuinely inspiring, rather than having to work only to pay the bills?
- Is a person freer if she dares to speak her mind in every situation, rather than feeling she has to hold back in order to avoid the judgment and disdain of others?
- Is a person freer if she feels that she is a responsible participant of her community and society, rather than a passive spectator?
- Is a person freer if she can make life choices without fearing for her financial security?
- Is a person freer if she can walk down the street and meet no beggars, see less social misery and not have her mind filled with commercials vying for her time, attention and money?
- Is a person freer if she consumes goods and services in order to do something she believes in rather than acting out of inner insecurities?
- Is a person freer if her mind is affected by less cognitive biases and prejudices?
- Is a person freer if she makes most of her choices in a calm, harmonious state of mind rather than a stressed, anxious one?
- Is a person freer if she has many different positive identities to choose from, so that if she fails in one regard, she may still flourish in another?
We can safely answer each of these questions with an emphatic "Yes!"
As such, I would like to suggest another kind of freedom. Not a vague one that would offer excuses for (and obfuscations of) the oppression that goes on in China or Russia—but one that builds upon what has already been accomplished in the freest societies; a definition of freedom that points skyward, towards a more deeply felt and more pervasive freedom that encompasses all aspects of everyday life.
The basis for this theory is the idea that freedom must be felt and embodied by the citizen in order to be real.
To strive for less, to call it the day when we’ve established rule of law, independent courts, freedom of expression and universal suffrage, is not only unambitious, it is even unethical given the suffering caused by feeling unfree.”