Freedom
a quick unedited response to the Write Here prompt of the week
The ability to make choices about my life, while recognizing my interdependence with and responsibility to others including my partner, family (people, pets, plants), friends, colleagues, students, future generations and the delicate balance of life on Earth.
Freedom is a very Western, White, enlightenment concept that has been trending for too long, with peaks in the 1960s, early 2000s and pre-Covid 2020. As someone born and living in what is currently known as Canada (largely unceded Indigenous lands, now dominated by racist settler colonialism) I am keenly aware of the emphasis our neighbour to the south puts on “freedom.” The constitutional imperative and the cultural bias. And I am skeptical of the value and implications of the idea. We share a lot of historical context and inherited cultural values. Freedom for a few, at the expense of the many.
Freedom from is different than freedom of or freedom to. Freedom from slavery, freedom from abuse, freedom from exploitation? Freedom from discrimination? Liberation from these forms of domination are more about collective struggle and transformative justice, than they are about “freedom.” The UN Charter of Human Rights outlines the humanist ideals clearly and concisely without too much focus on freedom other than freedom of movement and freedom of expression. Freedom of speech is one of the stickiest and most instructive examples that continues to stir up controversy. As soon as someone starts yelling about their right to say whatever they want, someone else will yell back, equally justified in expressing their disagreement, until the first someone complains they are being censored or canceled just because someone disagrees with them. It’s a vicious circle, and a distraction from the real concern at hand, which is our collective survival on the planet.
“I’m not free until we’re all free,” is a motto to live by. This idea has been voiced by many famous thinkers and change-makers over time and in many social movements, civil rights, gay liberation, anti-globalization and more. Its message, meaning freedom is a collective experience, is profound in its simplicity. If my freedom to live as I choose depends on the unfreedom or domination of another or many others, then my freedom is false and unsustainable.
Currently, the Western/post-Industrial way of life amounts to believing that the freedom to be physically and emotionally comfortable is a right. That being able to own, consume and accumulate more and more resources is somehow a birth right, an expectation, instead of recognizing the extreme unsustainable luxury that it is. Privileged people of post-Industrial, developed nations (of whom I am one) can afford our freedom to live comfortably only because millions, actually billions, of people are living without basic needs and working in unsafe, extractive, exploitive conditions to produce the goods we consume.
The cult of the individual, the quest for freedom at all cost, is based on the European enlightenment values that prioritize the White, hetero, wealthy, male perspective above all else. As the impacts of rampant individualism clearly make themselves known in the form of hyper-consumerism, we know things need to change. I am writing this in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave gripping western Canada with never-before-seen temperatures extending for weeks. Smoke from forest fires raging in the Pacific north west has filled the air hundreds of kilometers north and east, in the southern Alberta city where I live. The natural systems that support all living beings are off balance due to the impacts of capitalist, individualist, consumerism. We are on the brink of ecological collapse that no one can escape and we need each other if we are to survive. We are not free.
If, instead of freedom, we can focus on relationships of interdependence, the subtle and nuanced ways that our lives are interrelated with all life on Earth, we might be able to regain some balance. Regain some hope for the future.