Freedom is a tricky concept. It is often easier to think about individual freedom than it is to try to figure out the complexity of the cross section of our freedom with the freedoms of others. The tension between these two concepts is always there, but occasionally we see it erupt as we have in the mask vs maskless debate. In this context we see many folks who have decided that wearing a mask infringes on their individual freedom to make their own choice about whether they want to wear a mask or not. I don’t pretend to know whether they are doing any sort of risk assessment or considering the potential down stream impacts of their choice now. What future freedoms are they giving for the semblance of individual freedom now? I think there is even an argument to be made that this choice is not made freely given that it is mostly framed around a political identity. Being a slave to political identity for the sake of that identity only, regardless of other effects is still slavery, the antithesis of freedom.
The counter to the maskless are the masked. It is easier to see the freedom of choice both in the immediacy as well as in the down stream impacts. However, it is also clear that folks who choose to wear their masks as sacrificing some specific freedom of breathing without a mask in exchange for reclaiming many of the other freedoms we are accustomed to. In addition, wearing a mask protects health freedom of yourself and those you interact with. It is not a matter of political identity in the same way going without a mask has been leveraged. It does not indicate that you are blindly following something without thinking about it, although some folks wearing masks may just be following the advice of people they trust without understanding why, many understand the choice they are making and make it willingly.
This is not a matter of sacrificing freedom for security. It is a matter of trade offs and seeing the opportunity in an otherwise undesirable situation. Wearing a mask is a win/win solution. It was not socially acceptable in American society previously, but many of us have agreed that the benefits of wearing masks in this scenario far outweigh the negatives. The thing that bothers me the most about the weakness of the maskless argument is that it does not at all consider the impacts on other peoples freedoms. By going without a mask in most situations, you are infringing on the freedom of others to limit their exposure to the virus. It is a complete disregard for the cross section of equal freedom in our society. What on earth gives one person the right to exercise their freedom at the expense of another’s?
Well, that is very much the point of this entire discussion. Freedom is a simple idea when it exists in a vacuum and only the rights of a single individual are isolated from all else. We can simply say follow the guidance of freedom as it is defined, ‘the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.’ Unfortunately, this definition fails to capture the effect our actions could have on others. This is where laws and other rules come in. Murder is clearly wrong on many levels, but it explicitly takes away the right to life that someone else may have. The murderer may feel as though their act is justified by execution of their own freedom to act without hindrance or restraint, but in a society we must consider the impact of our actions on others.
In society, we must expand the definition of freedom with an addendum, ‘the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint’ without negatively affecting the freedom of others within the context of societies laws. This helps us more rightly navigate the trickiness of individual freedom and reminds us to consider the impacts of executing our individual freedom in the context of our society. It helps of think about freedom as something we must share equally within society. Society provides the freedom that we enjoy and by that provision we enter into a contract to accept the reasonable restraints on individual freedom that society indicates are necessary to preserve freedom equally for all members.
As a society, we have constructed mechanisms for managing and evaluating these restraints to ensure they sufficiently provide equal freedoms for all members of our society. It is critical that we engage fully with these constructs, it is our duty as members of this society. There can be no freedom without these constructs because remove of the artifice of government is anarchy and in the wake of anarchy comes tyranny. This is entirely predicable because the void of governance will necessitate the reformation these constructs, however at this stage it will be the most forceful elements who are able to solidify their hold. Control must be gained before laws can be reimposed from lawlessness. This means less freedoms can be given and inevitably society will fracture among a class of people who enjoy more freedom than other classes of people.
In America our pledge of allegiance ends with ‘liberty and justice for all.’ This is a pledge to always strive for equal freedom. At times, the tension between freedom and equal freedom has a clear impact on certain segments of the population who feel their freedoms are being eroded in favor of enhancing freedom of other segments. This creates anger that can be animated and we have seen that grow in recent years. Unfortunately, the power of anger to unify is exclusionary. Only the in group solidifies through anger, the out groups are pushed further away and society is only feasible when all groups are given equal treatment. As the in group further animates with anger and hatred for the out groups, the fractures in the framework of our society grow. Laws that enabled equal freedom for all groups are ignored and those actions defended by the in group as necessary.
Anger can be a helpful tool when it motivates us to move towards a positive win/win solution to a problem. We are unable to move to that while still acting out of anger though. Anger actions are often referred to as the red mist because of the way our brains turn off our reasoning centers when we are angry and actions are driven by our fight or flight response. So in order to move to a good solution, the anger must be moved past and understanding must take hold. Once we can understand then we can start to look to the root cause and only then will we be able to address the problem with a solution that solves it and helps prevent recurrence in the future.
As it is with the debate on masks so it is with many aspects of our society. There have been confusing signals and mixed messages from trusted sources of information. The reasons for this are diverse and complex, but two major ones are intentional misdirection and changing understanding of the risks. If we’re doing things right, our understanding of the risks should change in nearly every scenario because the world is a dynamic place and it is constantly changing. Intentional misdirection is another matter and unfortunately that takes away our equal freedom to make informed choices about our own risk tolerance. We should not be intentionally misdirected if our society is to trust the constructs of governance. We must know that truth is being presented with the best available information so we can make the best possible choices for ourselves with respect to individual and equal freedoms.
Stay Safe Out There,
~Zach