"It is impossible to abdicate our freedom."
To be free, in the sense of inner freedom-- not just free rights or privileges is something that we cannot escape no matter what according to David Banach. I cannot say i agree fully.
What happens if something is occurring in your head in which it is not allowing yourself to be free? What does it mean to be free? To be truly free does that mean that I have to be in touch with my individuality as well? Are those too terms a package deal? And to show my "freedom" do I have to say it loud and say it proud, or can I choose to keep myself closed off. And by not saying who I exactly am aloud or in writing in which my peers are reading, does that make me less free? Does that make me "fake"? Am I betraying myself due to my lack of willingness to share with the world something I consider private?
According to everyone else, to be truly free within my self, I have to know who I am, and how I plan to be that person all of the time.
Coinciding with David Banach's concept of being free no matter what you do, you are free inside your own mind. Of course everyone has their own inner- dialogue, but does that shape you? The way you act your "essence"-- to me, can say a lot about someone's "level" of freedom. By making excuses for yourself, to justify your actions does makes you less free? Or is that some other issue in your head. Does longing for acceptance make you less free?
Who is someone else to tell me weather or not I am "free"? I think that even facing inner demons becomes a hindrance to achieve that absolute freedom or "individuality". What if there is something in my mind blocking me from being who i want to be fully, that mechanism that makes me bite my tongue when I want to shout out and yell. Does that make me less free from some Joe Shomo who is not afraid to run rampant on people?
Do bad decisions also create a road block in the path to "freedom"? "Thus, we all have the tendency to act in bad faith"-- well, by "acting" in the first place isn’t that simply exercising the right to be "free"? Pretty much all David Banach was talking about in a lot of part two is how it is up to us, the person, to make of what we want to out of your given situation. To each his own. Isn’t saying "acting on bad faith" a contradiction to his whole argument of "freedom"? If i am free why does someone else have the right to deem a choice I make to be one of "bad faith"?
"We now need to see what view of human happiness and of morality arise from this single conception of human freedom. Both of these can be summed up by the single slogan 'BE AUTHENTIC'." Again how do I know if I am being "authentic"? Is there some sort of authenticity rubric hidden somewhere that you can refer to, making sure you are "authentic" all of the time? What I personally may view, as being "authentic" may not be what someone views it to be. So who’s right? Who then is really "authentic"? How can someone (being David Banach) say to be "authentic" when that word can mean many different things for many different people? What may be authentic to you may be inauthentic to me…
In the first part of his lecture I whole-heartedly agreed with him, but now as I am reading the part two I am not so sure I agree with his ideas, or how he goes about saying it. I get a sense of a condescending tone, which makes me less inclined to agree, based on principal.
... That is just me acting on the “freedom” I apparently have all the time....
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Ali,
ReplyDeleteAll it took was a paragraph for you to took me in. After talking to you in class about some of the ideas Banach has proposed, I found that I was immediately taken aback by your opening statement and I was intrigued to read more.
Basically it seemed that you were questioning the concept of freedom, and by extent, authenticity. You in fact hit this point over the head to a degree, drilling into my skull so that it will haunt me in my dreams that to be be authentic is impossible to truly determine, due to the many different ways that people may interpret the word. Webster defines the word as "being really what it seems to be", but what you are saying that not everybody can reach that same definition and therefore freedom is thrown into question.
Connecting this with the concept Banach proposed earlier in his lecture, that we are in fact watching a screen of images, Banach contradicts himself when faced with your argument. How can one be free if they are confined to their mind, if they have to watch a screen and sort the images, how can that be free OR authentic? I can see where a possible train of thought led from the screen concept to the proposal that we are all free, but there is still quite a strain there.
Doesn't it seem though, that your idea that we are incapable to determine if we are free is also strained? To be fair, Banach proposes that our inner self is free to sort out the images we see as we deem correct, which would be freedom. I feel as though it is impossible to truly know if we as a species are free, or then, if ANY species or being is free or authentic. I think that in order to know what our true nature is in terms of freedom, we would need to be a higher power, which leads to a whole different topic of religion.
End of the day, your questioning of Banach makes me think about my limitations as a person and what I can and cannot do, with society guiding me, with reality restraining me, with my mind limiting me. These thoughts tend to be the thoughts that overload the super-computer in old cartoons, and right about now your questioning makes me think that my head will explode if some steam doesn't start shooting out of my ears.
First time reading your thoughts as you write them, I was caught off guard but very much enjoyed your proposals and how you see the concept of freedom. I look forward to more from you.
Thanks for the knowledge,
Henry