Sean Tarjoto									Theorizing Freedom
Prof. George Shulman								Mar. 8, 2002	

MIDTERM PAPER QUESTION#3
“Freedom lies in recognizing that anyone could have, and always can, act differently”
 –A.non
“Freedom lies in recognizing that (and how) we are conditioned by forces we do not control.” 
– B.non

	The subject of this essay is limited by my own notions of freedom.  In exercising my knowledge, I have the choice to push the boundaries of my own illusions of freedom. But by simply accepting this choice as real, I am already stepping past my notion of myself as a free person, since I am limited by the edges of my illusions. The only course of action is to separate myself from these illusions, and declare the illusion void by failing to recognize them using the old notions.  Within the process appear many abstract words and non-commonsensical steps. Further, I do not know where these steps will lead – if I did, then I would be fated to take them. It seems, then, that the only road to freedom is to face that fate and understand my condition: my own freedom is limited by the shadow of my own illusions.
This is neither a condition of restraint nor an act of loosening those binds, or a dulling those edges. If I want to communicate to everyone I encounter, that I do not want to lose any freedom, I would have to bare my own illusions and assumptions to everyone, yet act as if they were separable at my own will.
	If I were tragically fated to this end, perhaps I would be doing my best to escape my fate by believing I am right about things which shape my world-view, even if they damage the freedom of others, and at least save my own skin. 
	This what the Delphic Oracle delivers to Oedipus, whose fate is to bring a plague to his own city. Yet the choices he made to seal his fate, begins with an act of murder. But even this choice was predetermined, because he chose to believe in its authenticity.  He could not, by virtue of those divine forces outside his control, do so without killing Laius. Unless Jocasta’s marriage was impermissible, Oedipus was born to fulfill a tragedy that could not be changed unless that tragedy was simply implausible, 

Teiresias:
	Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide 
	By thine own proclamation; from this day 
	Speak not to these or me. Thou art the man, 
	Thou the accursed polluter of this land.  (line 361-4)

	By his own words, the King seals his fate. As a consequence of his seeking the answers to the plague from the prophet Teiresias, Oedipus is now responsible for eradicating his own freedom. When Jocasta hears these words and commits suicide, she brings her own freedom to an end and the taboo is revealed to the city of Thebes. Oedipus can no longer stand to see what he has done, and makes another choice which transforms him, lifting the curse from himself and his fellow Thebans.  Sophocles lets tragedy leave no one untouched, no one free from fate. 
	Why is this so unsettling? Is this idea, that I may be fated to make others suffer, an uncontrollable force that sharpens the edges of my own freedom? Does this condition apply to all people who are affected by me in any shape or moment of encounter, regardless of whether they ask the question as a matter of fate or (fail) not to?
	If my freedom lies in recognizing that my race, my gender, my nationality, my religious background, and my fortune are all defined by the people who share these conceptions with me, then it becomes plausible that I can define and shape mine and their sense of freedom by manipulating their very boundaries. By knowing the self, and seeing it within the context of the freedoms. This notion of freedom belongs to those who see the oracles of their social coordinates as inseparable parts of themselves, who stand within the boundaries of the taboo. To believe in the authenticity of this force of liberation, requires understanding all of one’s actions as based on reciprocal communication. Examing myself for the purpose of shaping my actions would be akin to never knowing what I was saying, because I did not hear myself speak. It remains though that a person might, politely, communicate my own words back by writing them, or else we could engage in an entirely different kind of language. 
Standing on a language of reciprocity is the notion of freedom defined by ancient Hebraic self-descriptions in Exodus. The people themselves are identified with their own oral history, written with a religious conception of themselves as a nation. The Old Testament is a self-description. It is reflected as a story of struggle, as a people seeking freedom from a tyrannical god. Forged within this struggle was a covenant: a unique relationship that exists between these people and that which has been claimed as their unique god, a true god because it exists. Having consent with this covenant is foreward with believing in the existence of its author, who protects them from those unreal gods that do not exist. 
An adherent to the Judaic tradition cannot disallow freedom unless she conceives of the whole foundation of the agreement as false, but only if the covenant may only be conceived of separately, in many cases, if they are conceived of atheistically. Atheism is the begining vantage point of every secularization.  And yet, so many odd connections appear when this agreement is thrown into the modern world, when all the boundaries of freedom are separated – if a Hebrew wishes to follow the Pharaoh, she must do so by staying inside his kingdom. If she chooses to believe in those false gods, then she believes in nothing, including in the possibility of her freedom.  Instead, it seems as if she has known some notions of freedom as inaccurate or contradictory:  suddenly her own language is not a powerful enough form of knowledge: and the void that follows is transformed into an impetus to explore another language.
This is a freedom lies in the idea that they are people who are connected, by their traditions, to each other across all boundaries, geographic, political, or economic. Contained in the notion of the covenant is a common language basic to recognizing human freedom. It says, one should not think of false agreements (lies), much less act on them; or covet another’s possessions, since they signify a level of freedom. To do so is to rob someone of their freedom.
For those outside the knowledge of this language, there are many other books.  They exist everywhere, and within the historical context of these words, they collide, merge, and compete in each and every encounter that surrounds them.  And yet, it seems as if all languages are surrounded by each other. They certainly claim their own territory, and in the room that I sit in and the place in my mind where I think these words, they remain alien.  If the description of freedom as based on language, has as its basis, a kind of free will that may well be extant, then it also has the flavor of a self-justifying logic. It follows then that seeing this description as true actually forfeits freedom. Actually, this is a dead end that seems to be a failure to thoroughly, authentically self-examine. Such an ideal picture of free will seems to contain a condition that is an obstacle toward self-examination: what I cannot see in myself because I cannot see outside, the world of ideas, or in the faces of my closest friends and neighbors, makes all questions difficult to relate, because they are in different languages or different notions of freedom.  
Each of us is faced with this same question, now that it is framed differently: What must I do to live, and who must suffer for my own sake? And if they are, and the choices include amoral ones, then I have the freedom to let those who surround me create their own answers.  Another answer lies in the question posed by Machiavelli to the Prince: should I be feared or loved?  
	
“A prince, therefore, provided that he has not to rob his subjects, that he can defend himself, that he does not become poor and abject, that he is not forced to become rapacious, ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is one of those vices which will enable him to govern.” (Chapter 15: On Liberality & Meanness)

	Dostoyevsky confronts the same problems as the Prince.  The Grand Inquisitor tries to imprison the nature of man.  He robs nature of freedom, and it chooses to obey. He accuses freedom of being irreconcilable with everything that has been built around it, over it, and without it. He questions freedom, and receives only one answer of infinite, impossible compassion.

“For fifteen centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and over for good. Dost Thou not believe that it's over for good? Thou lookest meekly at me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell Thee that now, today, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst? Was this Thy freedom?'”

	The Prisoner, though fabulous and unreal, is also divine. He is able to raise the dead, heal the sick, make the blind see - he gives his powers to the most unfortunate souls, and he gives freely.  Such miracles come only at the price of believing that any prison is, within the total view of things, are obstacles to be transcended. 
	Transcending  such obstacles demands searching. It means illuminating those nocturnal creatures that live in the alleyways and closets. It seems as if the search is an really an examination. It is equally tragic and hopeful to see freedom on the outside. If this freedom can be drawn and brought into the caverns, it can be seen alongside all that, at first, seems base and poor. At the last examination, I can conclude that, at the least, there is a connection, and an absence only of a boundary between here and then, and the future.
	There still seem to be questions to ask:	
	I recognize that I can allow the ideals that are expected, conditioned or made explicit wither away by themselves, because they are confined to themselves.  I can say to anyone that I can always do nothing at the expense of facing the many-varied contexts of the consequences of not taking those actions. And though, in the act of exercising my freedom not to participate, I am defined as something separate, though, it seems, not alone.  But how is it that I myself did nothing to have these rights, and yet I have the right to do nothing with them? 
	I recognize that I have a responsibility to accept what has been given to me. I can afford, in many senses of the word, to use this freedom to recognize it is limited by everything that I have accumulated through my own actions, whether premeditated and unconscious, before I knew I had this freedom. Everything I have already done to damage my own freedom, is done so out of my own slavery. Slavery, in co-existing with freedom, forces upon the individual an irreconcilable tension – one that threatens the existence of either freedom or slavery.
	Each act of sabotage commits itself as a farce. 
	There is an tragic and final conclusion that I must recognize if I am determined to be free: to the extent of my freedom is limited by my choice to be separate,  I am lost, since I do not possess (in knowledge, or in deed) what was never offered to me.

Bibliography

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man.
	Translated by Brat’ila Karamazovy. English. Bk. 5, ch. 5.
	1st ed. New York : Collier Macmillan, c1948. (1986 Printing)

Machiavelli. The Prince.
	Translated by W.K. Marriott.
	University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection. 1998.
	http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/m149p/. [Mar. 8, 2002].

Plato. The Apology, Phædo and Crito, 
	Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Vol. II, Part 1. 
	The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001.
	http://www.bartleby.com/2/1/. [Mar. 8, 2002].

Sophocles. Oedipus the King, 
	Translated by E. H. Plumptre. Vol. VIII, Part 5. 
	The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son,
	1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. 
	http://www.bartleby.com/8/5/. [Mar. 8, 2002].