Freedom?

The gap between words and their internal meanings is worth observing and disassembling. If you aren't - someone is!

A prime example of this is in the concept of Freedom, considered a good uncritically. 

Of course, if you listen to the right people, this isn't so much the case. Nonetheless, I'll recite some of what I've heard and expand upon it.

Freedom is considered a good because it is a contrast to the bad of a lack of freedom. Britain in "1984" is a less free place to be than Britain of 2022. Or was it the other way around? 

Unrestricted freedom is a litmus test for a person's convictions, or lack thereof. Most find vices to re-enslave them. Some find virtues. This is because freedom is a transitory state, ending in enslavement to something else.

The simple matter is that the lower parts of man know what they want, and they know how to get what they want. The higher parts need to be developed. Together, they make a far more pleasing union - but we only know the view from the summit once we have climbed it - by desire or necessity. Given the "freedom" to, it's easier to blind oneself to your higher aspects, and become wholly of vice. After the highs, he will live in misery - enslaved to the wrong master, and having prior grown blind to anything better.

The glorification of freedom fails to fully understand what freedom is. It's simply what you can do. Valuing freedom is like valuing the number of doorways in a home - without asking the obvious question of, "Does it have a kitchen?" A lack of freedom in the desire to pursue misery is good, and a presence of freedom in the desire to pursue happiness is good. Though I'll discuss that further later. 

This also shows some of how modern society enslaves you. 1984 proposed a language designed to prevent you from thinking certain things. In truth, language (and the telepathic crowdsourcing of what it means) misdirects you from thinking in certain ways. Victory by sleight.

Freedom is a gradient, of greater or lesser ability to choose. Although the rent-reliant employee is formally free, his station is little above the slave's. Absent the ability to choose meaningfully, a man is a slave. Where vice enslaves within, deceptive language enslaves from without. Where the slave is contained by simply fear of force, the employee is handed first fear, and second a chain. He cuffs himself, by no direct coercion of the employer.

The employer, surely, has more freedom to make the choices he wishes to? Yes, and more freedom for vice. You can't sustain a coke habit on an entry-level hourly wage. 

That said, the chain is more in the employee's mind than on the hands.

Indeed, there is nothing stopping him except his courage (and possibly stupidity). The employer may in fact be more enslaved: Money can compensate somewhat for cowardice, but the mental state it engenders may ultimately leave it more costly. Where will courage be found in a lifestyle built around avoiding the risk of being poor? Wealth building demands your focus, to the absence of other matters. Having less to lose helps.

There's a space of the possible, and a further space within it of fear. To make fear more accurately resemble reality is to become freer, but to become unable to achieve what you wish due to trying to walk up a vertical cliff face straight to it is equally crippling. Taking some reasoned risks and enduring discomfort on the right path is to be expected.

I've prescribed that true freedom is to be able to choose correctly. That isn't to say some will ever find the will to do so - and they can only be directed away from so many false masters. A slave from opening to credits. 

Then, what is the correct thing to choose? I'll first discuss what it isn't: Happiness.