One oft-leveled attack on Christianity (or for that matter, any system of thought and authority), especially in this day of tedious identity markers ("I am a neo-Kantian through the lens of neo-Rawlsian interpretation")(groan), is something like this: "It doesn't let you be free." Free-thought is highly prized in today's intellectual economy. Not less free living. The call of a free, capitalist society, "you can be whatever you want to be" has echoed down through our vocational and fiscal choices into literally all of our other choices. For better or worse, young people today walk through a meat-market of identities and garnishes before they "pick one." Who will you be?
Now, it sounds very free and often looks very free, but is it free? Does systemized thought and cohesive identity enslave? It depends on what we mean by "free."
If by "free" we mean able, at any moment, for whatever reason, to break out of systematized thought/action and cohesive identity, then yes, avoiding systematized thought/action and cohesive identity does make us more free. Committing ourselves to anything - a religion or a square on a hopscotch court - does limit us. This is just the law of non-contradiction: a does not equal not-a. If you are a Christian you are not a Satanist. If your favorite color is blue it is not brown. If you are a communist you are not a libertarian. If you are on one of the two-legged spots on the court, you are not on one of the one-legged spots. The favorite color and the hopscotch aren't such good examples because they don't have any systematizing or identity-cohesivizing power. Long-term hobbies or much-practiced sports would better fit the point. If you want freedom in the sense of instant escape from any system of thought/action and cohesive identity, yes, avoid both. Avoid committing so you can change; and the power of freedom is change.
But if by "free" we mean being able, at any moment, for certain reasons, to take an action within systematized thought/action and cohesive identity, then avoiding those things is slavery. I can tell this is getting a little obscure so let's cut to my thesis and an illustration. (Thesis:) Truest freedom is only achieved within systematized thought/action and cohesive identity. (Illustration:) Imagine a 15-year old boy who has never had a music lesson in his life picking up a $50,000 violin. He can't read a bit of sheet music, and really all he knows about music at all is that Pharrell rocks and the Jonas Brothers suck. He picks up the violin and bow. He jams the butt under his chin and squawks a few horrible sounds out of the thing before putting it down. Then Kristen Campbell deftly plucks it from the floor and breaks into Tchaikovsky's Concerto in D major. Ah, but who has freedom? Is it that rigid musician who has subjected herself to the enslaving apparatus of systematized music? Or is it the boy who has a mind free and unhindered from all those strictures? Kristen has relentlessly behaviorized herself in music - she has trained her ear, her hands, her arms, her counting, her eyes, her chin. She has done this for thousands of hours; she has squeezed herself into the veritable mold of music. But the boy is unhindered and free and handles the violin in a manner that Kristen could not if she tried.
The point of the illustration should be apparent: freedom is defined by what we want to do. If we want to be free to handle the violin clumsily as no musician could; if we want to be able to put it down forever without a second thought, then we should avoid the systems of thought and action and cohesive identity of violinist. But if we want to be free to play on the violin music that has been recognized as great across generations and cultures, we should seek the systems of thought and action and cohesive identity of violinist. And think, is there any better live description of the term "freedom" than watching a musician whose instrument is an extension of her body, and who has played the piece 1,000 times?
Which freedom is better or more ultimately free?
There are a lot of yea-buts on this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
corollary: if you live with one hand on the exit door of Christianity you will never be free. Only by embracing the boundaries of a system of thought can one progress in the system.
I agree. However, we don't have to break the key off in the lock of the door, either. The work of philosophy is much like that of a government inspector at the construction site--he walks around examining the wood used, the hurricane clips, the electrical outlets, etc. If we, like the inspector, find a structure to be unstable (not 'code') we have the freedom to exit...right?
Yes we do have freedom to exit. Even if we broke off the key there's always getting the axe. The aim of restriction is progress, and the more you restrict yourself to your course the more progress you can make down it. But that doesn't mean you can't come to the end of the road and find out that all your progress led you to Dead Man's Gulch. (What's a gulch?)
So that's where philosophy or any form of verification comes in. I guess some progress must be expensed for inspection; breaking away from the freedom of restriction for a time to make sure the freedom you picked is not taking you to the gulch.
To use your illustration, if the builder never quite commits to the limitations of building the house, he is more free, but not more free to achieve a house. The house is the progress and it requires his commitment. If he never commits to the restrictions, he can never have progress. If he does commit to the restrictions, he may still have no progress because an inspector-man comes and says, "no code." But he can have progress if he says, "code."
So without committing to boundaries we can never have progress, and with committing to boundaries we only might.
Here's a paragraph from Jay Adams (I don't like some of the philosophy he interjects in his counseling-methods, but I thought this was apropos to your post).
'...Is not structure confining? No; exactly the opposite is true. The train is free to run most rapidly and smoothly when it is "confined" to the tracks. The musician who "confines" himself to the laws of music and harmony plays more freely than the one who, in the name of freedom, disregards them. God created man to live fully and abundantly, and he has outlined the structure that will produce abundant life through love.'
I guess you do have at least one thing in common with the presuppositionalists :).
Post a Comment