{"id":415,"date":"2023-08-29T20:42:55","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T20:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=415"},"modified":"2023-08-29T20:42:55","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T20:42:55","slug":"contemplations-on-freedom-and-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=415","title":{"rendered":"Contemplations on Freedom and Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I watched a\u00a0great video<\/a>\u00a0from Michael Boldin over at the Tenth Amendment Center the other day. Even though it was one of their shorter \u201cFast Friday\u201d episodes, Michael touched on a very interesting topic: happiness and freedom. He argued that the Founders placed extreme value on freedom, to the point where several of them said things to the effect of: \u201cYou cannot be truly happy unless you are free.\u201d That simple but profound statement got me thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

One thing it got me thinking about is that we don’t really have a specific word for this happiness that depends on freedom. At least, not one that doesn’t also push an excessively moralistic feel. One might call it \u201ctrue\u201d happiness or \u201celevated\u201d happiness, but both of those imply that the further you go in that direction, the better off you are. As I’ll show below, that’s not exactly the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start by looking at the most basic form of happiness. This form of happiness is so basic an emotion that even animals feel it, like a dog wagging its tail. Clearly, this is not a bad thing, as long as the means for achieving it are also good. However, while we recognize its value, we can also see that there is a more complicated emotion with the same name. Consider the happiness caused by a good conversation, a philosophical text, or even a well-played game or sporting event. These pleasures require a more abstract and flexible mind to be appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along these lines, the Greek philosophers had a concept called eudaimonia. Often translated as \u201chappiness\u201d or \u201cwelfare,\u201d this simplified translation has led to people believing that the Epicurians, who attempted to maximize it, were base hedonists, when in fact Epicurus was clear about the value of the \u201chigher\u201d pleasures as well as the \u201clower\u201d ones. But whatever we call it, it’s clear that this is something real, and different. Consider Aldous Huxley’s book Brave New World<\/em>: it’s explicit that the people taking Soma derive pleasure from it, yet at the same time it’s obvious they’re missing out on something important. What?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people in Brave New World<\/em> are engineered to have limited intelligence, but experience shows that’s not the whole answer. Intelligent people fall into this trap all the time. It isn’t just freedom, either–people under totalitarian regimes create great works of literature and art against all odds. What is lacking is the specifically human dignity that comes with freedom–that quantum of respectability that comes with being human and being seen as human<\/em> by those around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This underlying human dignity is one of the great innovations of the Enlightenment. The notion that all people at least have a soul that deserves some basic respect is one that eventually led to the abolition of slavery and rigid caste systems. Whether there is a soul or not is immaterial–the idea created a reason to acknowledge the individual, and not just a few special individuals–everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see a clear contrast to this idea in some Eastern literature. For example, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms<\/em>, written in the fourteenth century, only the persons with the highest rank have any innate value. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are disposed of with barely a hint that they mean anything, and even fairly high officials are executed for relatively minor failures. These occurrences are not treated as strange, cruel, or anomalous–they are matter-of-fact and widely accepted as appropriate in the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This notion of basic human dignity crept into world culture gradually. For instance, in the historical novel Musashi<\/em>, written by Eiji Yoshikawa in 1935, Musashi starts out as a fierce, animalistic man, but in the course of the book, he has the unusual opportunity for an extended period of literary study. This changes him drastically, to the point that he remarks that he was not truly human<\/em> before it. The existence of these two states, and the explicit recognition of them in the book, herald this basic dignity making a slight inroad into the culture of Japan. However, it’s worth noting that Musashi’s position misses the potentiality of those who did not have the opportunity for his humanizing studies, and only a few years later the whole country of Japan would be swept into a war frenzy that would not only ignore the rights of non-Japanese, but would also encourage Japanese to throw their lives away for the state. Culturally, they still had a long way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, this basic sense of human dignity is one factor that helps us to experience and appreciate the \u201chigher\u201d pleasures that are inaccessible to the characters in Brave New World<\/em>. Yet at the same time, it is clear that words like \u201chigher,\u201d \u201ctrue,\u201d and \u201celevated\u201d add in a connotation that should be avoided, since a fully exclusive aim at these pleasures would also make for a difficult life. Only the barest few ascetics are willing to sacrifice the entirety of their \u201clower\u201d pleasures for the \u201chigher\u201d ones. We need<\/em> people concerned with \u201clower\u201d pleasures to produce food, shelter, and all of the other niceties we enjoy. And, if, through our ingenuity, we can satisfy some required minimum of the \u201clower\u201d pleasures for more people, then those people will have the time and material wealth to enjoy the \u201chigher\u201d pleasures as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, the appropriate level of \u201celevation\u201d is a function of people’s preferences and differs over time and between groups. That’s why words like \u201celevated\u201d do a disservice–they belittle the material plenty that gives us enough comfort to appreciate the \u201celevated\u201d pleasures. By creating works of culture, we can influence those around us in one way or the other. Such influence is not right or wrong, as long as it is voluntary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This appears to be another paradox: Other groups may have different evaluations of how much time they want to spend on \u201celevated\u201d pleasures, and we may think they can improve their lot by changing their minds and adopting our valuations. But these influences must<\/em> be voluntary, and for a good reason: If we force others to adopt our positions, we have taken away that basic human dignity that allows them to enjoy \u201celevated\u201d pleasures to begin with. Over time, people denied dignity will drift away from \u201celevated\u201d pleasures. Freedom, and especially freedom of association, does more by creating pockets of prosperity that serve as clear examples than any totalitarian order could ever accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promoting a more or less \u201celevated\u201d state requires persuasion, and changes gradually over time. This is why great cultural works by men like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were still able to be produced under the cloud of totalitarian control, in spite of a hard push by government toward baser propaganda. That spirit of dignity had not yet been crushed from Solzhenitsyn’s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, people who have just escaped the reins of totalitarianism or slavery must be given time to see the world around them and learn by example. Their baseness is not their fault–it is the fault of those who tried to beat that dignity out of them. Treating people with respect and dignity makes them more likely to see the value of \u201celevated\u201d ends, and more productive, to boot. What should be avoided are unnatural incentive structures that allow them to stay behind yet reap the benefits of the \u201celevated\u201d around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One tension in this Enlightenment view is the question of elites. Even if all men were created equal, it is clear that some choose to do more with what they started with than others. And if men were not created equal, well…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We find the solution in freedom and basic dignity again. All men, even those who choose to or are able to do less, have the right to be free. The position of what might be called a \u201cnatural\u201d elite comes not from his productivity, charisma, or intellect, but from others’ voluntary recognition<\/em> of those qualities. They exist in contrast with \u201cartificial\u201d elites, who use sophistry, lies, fraud, and force to make others obey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A focus on freedom and individualism, whether you call it Libertarianism, Anarchism, Anarcho-capitalism, or any other name, serves these purposes best of all political theories. It advocates for all of the elements needed for groups of people to find the right level of \u201celevation\u201d for themselves. It demands respect for the individual’s basic dignity, and advocates for the abolition of all more coercive forms of interaction. It allows groups with different levels of \u201celevation\u201d to trade freely and enrich each other to the best of their abilities without allowing either group to force the other to emulate its policies. It allows for the division of labor, which creates wealth most efficiently.  Finally, it allows information to flow freely, allowing different groups to see the results of each others’ actions, and react accordingly. Freedom and individualism are the best way for us to encourage each other to be as \u201celevated\u201d as we can without sacrificing our material desires more than we are willing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cover image based on a photo by Dan Mall<\/a> at Unsplash<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America’s founders believed that only through liberty could true happiness be achieved. What is this “true” happiness and what distinguishes it from simple physical pleasure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,3,6,82],"tags":[101,37,86,19,131,85],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-creation","category-economics","category-essay","category-philosophy","tag-culture","tag-economics","tag-freedom","tag-liberty","tag-literature","tag-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/dan-mall-JsquWCJ4h9Y-unsplash-cr.jpg?fit=930%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}