How Do I Define Freedom?

Recent conversations with various people online regarding freedom in relationships, agorism, and other topics led me to do a fair amount of thinking on the topic of exactly what freedom is to me. Fortunately, before I got too deeply into the subject I recalled that I’d written about this subject more formally already, in a book manuscript that went unpublished. In what follows I’ll pull from that manuscript (finally, a use for some of it!) and add to it, to try to give a clearer picture of how I define freedom, and why I make the claim I do, that all freedom is personal.

My favorite dictionary (Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition) defines “free” as follows:

able to act or think without compulsion or arbitrary restriction ... existing under a government that does not impose arbitrary restrictions on the right to speak, assemble, petition, vote, etc.

The first part of that definition is very wide; the latter is much narrower, encompassing only one of the three broad areas into which I classify elements of freedom—and interestingly, with its lead phrase “existing under a government” it highlights (to me, at least) the hypocrisy inherent in state-based government: for what else does the state do but impose arbitrary restrictions and coerce individuals into acts they would not otherwise choose?

Anyway, the latter definition is part of what I think of as political freedom. Many individuals, including a healthy subset in the freedom family, think of political freedom primarily in terms of elections: choosing “representatives” and weighing in on how to rob people to pay for government services (viz., what kind of and how much taxation is acceptable). Such thinking implicitly accepts the notion of a set of rulers and a set of individuals who are ruled by them. Given the obvious failures of the republican form of representational government in just this country, I continue to be amazed that freedom-loving individuals still seek solutions therein.

Being an anarchist, I reject the structure of rulers and ruled, of course: but how might an anarchistic definition of political freedom go? Well, that is a tough nut to crack, but I think the central part of it is found in the etymology of the word politic, which derives from ancient Greek, and meant “of a citizen”. What are citizens? While many probably would share the context Kent refers to, that’s only one meaning of the term. Going back to my trusty dictionary, its varied definitions are:

1. formerly, a native or inhabitant, esp. a freemason or burgess, of a town or city
2. a native, inhabitant, or denizen of any place
3. a member of a state or nation, esp. one with a republican form of government, who owes allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and is entitled to full civil rights
4. a civilian, as distinguished from a person in military service, a policeman, etc.

So, in an anarchic society, citizens are just inhabitants. In a voluntary society, then, individuals would be free to try to establish various systems for accomplishing certain tasks—and, most importantly, others would be free to remain outside the systems if they so chose, without penalty as a necessary consequence of that choice. For example, a healer might choose to let a guild examine her methods and materials in order to certify that she meets their standards; but if she does not choose to do that, she remains free to ply her trade without interference from anyone. In other words, in an anarchic society individuals are free to organize if they wish, but are not coerced into any sort of organization or hierarchy.

My example bleeds into the second area in my classification of freedom: economic freedom. In my mind, this encompasses all sorts of exchanges, as well as rules or limitations on how exchanges are made, and who may engage in them. Doesn’t the fact that some people across this country take it upon themselves to permit a woman to be paid to kiss a man—and more—while making a movie, yet another woman who isn’t making a movie cannot do the same thing to a man in his home, or hers, or anywhere without the threat of arrest, highlight the hypocrisy in such rules? It is tyranny, plain and simple, when laws prohibit individuals under a certain age from purchasing items such as tobacco, alcohol, or nail polish remover, yet those individuals are deemed old enough to marry, drive a vehicle, or go off to fight and die for the state’s delusions of do-goodism. It is absurdist tyranny when an individual of any age may not buy a “legal” product without showing identity papers and signing forms attesting to “approved” use of said item.

Many of these laws and regulations are passed with the idea of protecting consumers, and while it may be that they carry the best of intentions, what George Herron wrote is nonetheless true: “The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised.” Moreover, as the system fails at its protectionist façade, more layers of rules are imposed. Thus we arrive at today’s failed sham of a food protection system, and individuals who apparently cannot make good choices about the food they buy and consume without its dubious leadership.

The third area of freedom in my mental schema is personal freedom. That is a much more difficult area to define, in part because it is much more subjective than the previous two areas, but I think of it this way: personal freedom involves one’s choices about how to be an individual, and how to interact with others. As such, some individuals who were under the boot of Soviet rule in Russia and other countries may have felt a lot of personal freedom, despite the heavy burden of the totalitarian regime which stifled political and economic freedoms. Many in this country are familiar with the converse: the USSA is still quite free in some respects, yet the knowledge of what has been lost and how difficult the course to regaining it might be often gives rise to feelings of despair at the freedoms lost.

Personal freedom as defined above is further subdivided into two areas. Self-oriented freedom focuses on what some might think of as an individual’s personality, although I would not go quite that far. What I do mean is whether an individual feels in control of his life and able to handle challenges that arise over its course. Somewhat related to these are the person’s philosophical belief in free will or “fate”, “destiny”, “the will of God”, or any of the many other ways one might cast a determinist perspective. Self-oriented freedom, then, is directed inward, encompassing your sense of who you are, what kind of person you are and want to be, and how you see yourself growing toward the person you want to be.

Others-oriented freedom focuses on interactions with others, singly and in aggregate. Thus, one part of this area is the degree to which one is comfortable ignoring or rejecting social customs and conventions, as well as values held by the society or culture one lives in. Another aspect involves how one interacts with others in relationships, from the brief sharing of space between individuals in an elevator to long-term intimate relationships between romantic partners or lifelong friends. So, this area of personal freedom is directed outward, and relates to how you approach others, interact with them, and whether you allow your behavior and/or way of being to be influenced by them.

This kind of personal freedom, as I’ve already said, is quite subjective; and therefore, it is extremely difficult to try to gauge another’s level of freedom in this area. For some, being of service to others is an expression of freedom, but to others such acts are uncomfortable, at the least. We are unable to get inside each other’s minds, to truly grok what’s going on; thus our judgments of the amount of freedom in another’s life is always colored by our own thoughts, values, history ... and is almost always a different shade from that person’s view.

This level of personal freedom is what Joey seemed to be most focused on; and I certainly understand that, as I had a lot to work through in that regard myself when I first encountered the freedom philosophy. But, viewed in a broader context, one that encompasses all three of the areas of freedom that I have described, the path each of us takes in our journey to create our lives is a course dictated by personal preference. Thus, an individual becomes a tax resister because that action has personal value or meaning; another becomes an agorist because she’s sick of the incessant permission-slipping and nannyism of the state, and seeks to shun it as much as possible in her economic interactions with others; yet another becomes an RKBA activist because the fundamental right of self-defense is seen as an area in dire need of education and outreach to others.

These decisions have economic and political implications, of course; but the decision to do one thing and not to pursue another arises from a highly personal interest pulling a person to one area rather than a different one. That’s what I mean when I say all freedom is personal—it surges from our values, our desires, and our dreams to be more free in every way. Based on my experience at the Liberty English Camp in Lithuania last year, and the Lessons of Liberty camp in Georgia, it appears that people who have direct experience under explicit totalitarianism understand this much better than most of the American freedom family with whom I have tried to share this idea. Exploring why that might be is better saved for another day, however. It’s a glorious sunny day, and I have snolfs to squeeze, and a garden to tend to, and other projects to advance.