WHAT IS THE MEANING OF FREEDOM? By Ian Almeida (2008) When asked by the question, “What is the meaning of freedom?”, it is likely that most people will have a similar answer. For most people nowadays, freedom meant being free to do anything you want to do, have anything you want, and have all the enjoyment and pleasure you want to have. Based from experience, I was able to observe that many people nowadays have a materialistic definition about freedom. If you will ask the question to inmates serving their sentence on a jail, “freedom” for many of them means what they’re going to have on their day of release. If we assume that this would be the response of a common inmate on today’s jails, what response would we expect from a prisoner on an inferno-like Nazi-operated concentration camp during the years of World War 2? Surely we will expect them to have a very similar if not the same, answer with the inmate from today’s jails, but this is not always the case. Before reading the book entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Dr. Viktor Frankl, I expected that he would have the same definition of freedom. While reading the back cover of the book I found out that the author was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and even before opening the book, I already guessed what his definition of freedom would be. After reading the first part of the book, entitled “Experiences in a Concentration Camp”, I found out that my guess was wrong. I found out that Dr. Frankl wasn’t like the common prisoner. He had a very philosophical definition of freedom and I just marvelled at how he was able to think of such a definition despite his awful situation. Dr. Frankl described freedom in pages 86 and 87 of the book. He started with a series of questions that seem to be similar to one of the most debated questions for psychologists today. Today psychologists debate with each other about topics regarding what shapes man’s personality (Feldman, 2005). Is it nature or nurture? Dr. Frankl asked a similar question. He questioned if the external environment of the person does have an effect on the person’s “inner self”: “…I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors-be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?” (p. 86) He then answered his own questions. He explained that the questions can be answered “from experience as well as principle”. He stated that even in the worst circumstances, man still have a choice of action. He cited examples which he observed in his experience in the concentration camps. He stated that “man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.” We can infer from his writings that he is saying that no matter how robbed a person is of his or her freedom, it cannot be robbed totally. He referred to this freedom as an “inner freedom” which I think is freedom to think. He describes this freedom as freedom “to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way.” He concluded that what becomes of an individual is not just because of the person’s external environment but is also affected by decisions which the person have made in the past, decisions which are made from the “inner self”. “…Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.” (p. 87) I think that most people are making these decisions unconsciously. After reading the book, I realized that what Dr. Frankl said was true. What I am experiencing right now is a result of the decisions I made in the past, most of which I made unconsciously. This reminded me of something that my Philosophy teacher taught me in the past: Existentialism. Dr. Frankl had an existentialist view. In my case, I didn’t even know that we have such a freedom that cannot be robbed from us. If asked about what freedom meant to me, I will have a different description of it. I have not been in a concentration camp, nor locked up in jail, but I have my own description of freedom. Others may have a similar view with me, and I think that this is very likely. For me, the most difficult thing to be free from is not from the outside of the self but on the inside. It is difficult to be free from oneself, and perhaps even impossible. Sometimes I found myself being afraid of me. I’m afraid of the mistakes I am going to commit in the future. An example is that there are many times in the past that my carelessness has almost endangered my life, like crossing the road and almost being hit by a speeding bus because I was memorizing Biology terms while crossing, and not watching my step. There’s also this one time when I was very excited and I rushed up the slippery stairs and slipped. I almost hit my head on the sharp edge of the steps. After committing such mistakes, I realized that I was very fortunate that I have survived, and I promised myself to be more careful in the future, but sometimes excitement causes me to become careless and I still commit mistakes that almost took my life. Honestly, that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of the possibility that the next mistake I’m going to make would finally be the one that will take me away from this world. Although I strive to be more careful, many things, especially excitement, can cause me to lose my vigilance to the surroundings. For me, freeing oneself from such things would be a great achievement. I agree with Dr. Frankl that our decisions can determine what will happen to us in the future. Dr. Frankl explained that we have such a freedom to make decisions on our own, and I am explaining how such a freedom can endanger us if human nature takes over and causes us to make wrong decisions. We are free to make decisions, but we are still captive to human nature which greatly affects the decisions we make. With our own efforts, I think it would be impossible to free ourselves from human nature. It will always have a grip on us since we are just human. I believe that only God can free us from such things. In conclusion, we do have an “inner freedom”, a freedom to make decisions on our own, decisions that will affect our fate. Thus, we have an indirect freedom to shape our future through the decisions we make, and this freedom can never be taken from us no matter the circumstances. This is what Dr. Frankl tells us. However, even though we have this freedom to think and make decisions, we are still captive to human nature, and to escape from human nature very difficult, if not impossible to achieve by our own efforts. Only a miracle, like for example, divine intervention, can help us escape from the limits of human nature. References: Feldman, Robert S. Understanding Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005 Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984 phoenix5.org/books/Frankl/FranklFreeChoice.html [accessed 11/23/2008]
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 12:10:03 +0000
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