America+-+'Easy+in+the+Harness'

America: "Easy in the Harness" I like this article, a lot. Spence begins with a fabulous question: "What is freedom? (806)" These kinds of questions are just too fun to talk about, and this one's no exception, mostly because there has to be an answer, but the answers we conclude to to are complete contradictions. Looking at the first little dialogue between a teacher and child shows an apparent contradiction; freedom means being able to leave a dogma to do whatever we please, but the second things turn south, we return to that dogma. Now this contradiction could be eliminated by saying that we are "free" to return or that rules are needed to run a free society and therefore returning to the dogmatic system is not a forced event, but this has implications. To say that a dogmatic system, or any society based on rules, is natural, would mean that returning is the only option against certain destruction, which then means that you were never "free" to return to the system, because it was only natural, humans are self-preserving creatures. Conversely, this makes leaving the system an unnatural event and anyone who vows to never return as anomalies, doomed, as it were, to their own destruction. Then there's the idea of freedom of will, which has been established as simply being natural instinct; so what of those who "will" themselves to not return to dogma? They, too, are not "free" because their own will has enslaved them to their own dogma. Thus, at the end of the day, there is not freedom. Of course, there's the argument of detail, which is that the above logic is looking at freedom too broadly, and that even if no person possesses free-will to do as they please, they still have freedom to make choices, and to say what they please - essentially soft-determinism (the basic philosophy behind __The Adjustment Bureau__, if anyone needs a reference) - but that isn't the point to Spence's specific argument; he isn't looking at the ultimate state of human freedom, he is looking freedom in the context of society and the contrast between the definitions of freedom to societal workings. "We are not free. Nor have we ever been. Perfect freedom demands a perfect vision of reality, one too painful for the healthy to endure. It requires that we be alive, alert, and ... aware of our raw being. ... If we our knowledge of freedom were perfect, we would not choose it. Pure freedom is pure terror (806)." Okay, so maybe there's a little bit of an assertion pertaining to the ultimate state of human freedom, but nonetheless, that entire paragraph was just really interesting, I'd go so far to say beautiful even. Beautiful because it's so true, it's a huge contradiction to the views of freedom and the realities of the world. Regardless of theological positions, we hold ourselves to our own chains: individualism is shunned in the name of the good of society, we refuse ourselves in the name of our code of honor, free thought is crushed in the name of religious "truth". I am reminded of the main character in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence, as well as countless artists and scientists, whose individuality, artistic vision, and scientific breakthroughs were all crushed because of societal standards and religious dogma. I am reminded of the countless people out there now, crushed into submission and the mercy of religious and societal dogmas. Then I remember those who are fighting, who see the hideous truth and seek to bring its face to light, to free everyone from their freedom, to put it analogously, to bring everyone out of Plato's cave. The single constant in all of this is that freedom is not free, no matter what angle the subject is approached from. Either freedom is actually enslavement in its own name or it's work, real work, work that few are willing to commit to in this day and age: to look at themselves as critically as they see those around them and to, in a sense, transcend their own being. We're afraid of loneliness, death, want, rejection, afraid of so many things that all cause us to stay in our dogmatic systems, to assume that is the natural way; but what if we were to accept these challenges, look them in the face. I think we would get over our fears, and then we would know a truer freedom, to put in terms from the Gospel of Thomas: "those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all." We want to rule over all, we want to be the deciders of our path, to have the ultimate freedom, but we don't want to actually put in the work, we don't want to find because we know what we will find will disturb us, and so we are perfectly content to marvel what little we already have, willfully unaware to everything else. The more I think about it, the more and more my thoughts return to Nietzsche and his übermensch, but I think I'm deviating too much from the text and ranting on my own.

Then, if we look at the next page, Spence tells an interesting little story about two horses he once worked and loved very dearly. Spence cleverly applies his previous statements about freedom to this next story, and so the horses are not truly "free" but free within safety, or "easy in the harness". Then the horses just dissapeared, to go on to less lively things (see what I did there?). Spence makes a very sweet, if not clichéd, statement that the horses's "bellies were not gripped with fear. There was no sadness, no regrets. And as the truck rumbled down the highway toward the slaugherhouse, the fall air must have blown through their manes and made their old eyes water, and they must have felt joy (807)." That's how everyone wants to go, peacefully, and it's a touching addition to, what I think, is a well written article, but there's another message, or really a question. This part should raise the question of whether or not the kind of freedom Spence identifies in the article is really best; is controlled freedom the best for us? Some would completely agree that set-up dogmas and rules are good for us because they promote our safety and peace (that same peace that keeps us from leaving the cave of freedom). Yet, there are flaws: humans are flawed, ergo, even if it's with the best intentions, human-made rules are flawed, and we've never had an alternative completely devoid of our current system to look at and say yea or nay to. People will say that deep down, we really know that rules are the way to go. Except, a lot of things happend deep down: that fear of being wrong that sends us back to our dogmas, that feeling that this system isn't right. In all actuality, that little voice telling us rules have a purpose is just a scared child that wants to be safe and doesn't want to look deeper because it's scary in the unknown. Sure, rules exist to prevent public disturbances, but it's also true that those same regulations can also be the same reason public disturbances occur in the first place. Those rules might not even work, so why keep yourself under a set of flawed rules? Then there are the big-ticket items, like war and treachory, rules don't help there; and the interesting thing about rules is that they only work if everyone coöperates. Interesting, too, is that the freedoms we have today are the same way: only freedoms if everyone goes along with it.

I think that a key passage from Spence's text is paragraph 37, discussing the link between the accepted definitions of freedom and the definition of America. "As Americans we envision Washington's battered patriots marching ... crossing the Delaware. We think of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ... the freeing of the slaves ... the marches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (809)." In other words, whenever we think "freedom" we think "America", which I think is just completely shallow. It doesn't provide a grand depth into knowing what freedom is if all we come up with is a country's history. This envisionment of America isn't envisioning freedom, it's envisioning what we've become conditioned to envision when we hear the buzzword. America isn't freedom, freedom is freedom. America is just one country applying a definition of freedom, one that isn't even all-encompassing freedom (as in, it doesn't describe the conditions of any metaphysical realities. It doesn't explain evil or good. It's simply political and cultural, not psychological, theological, or anything like that). Spence isn't concerned with the little "freedoms" we have that are supposed to add up to make us free, he's looking at the concept itself, trying to find "das ding an sich" of freedom. The other thing that caught my eye, within the same paragraph, was that "we believe we are free in the same way we believe in God (809)." Spence uses this statement to say that our freedom is purely based on faith, not that it concretely exists, but that we believe we will still be free when we wake up tomorrow. I see it as also being on the literal side. Ask some one if they believe in God, and, with some exceptions, you will get an answer along the lines of "well, I believe there's something out there, yes". It's the same way with freedom, we acknowledge that there's some kind of universal truth that is "freedom", a universal definition, but no one actually knows, or can agree, what that definition is.